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JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the only unexpected element of Hearts' victory over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which taken aback observers seemed when reports of the result and its consequences for the top of the table emerged. While this 3-1 win at their home ground, which leaves the Jambos top of the table and a significant margin ahead of Celtic, was seismic in nature, nobody who has been tracking the progress of either squad this season will have been even remotely astonished by the result.

Over the last four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish football between them, turning the beautiful game to almost a punchline in the meantime. Several matches into the current campaign it has become clear that Hearts – who count Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – could be ready to strike while the Glasgow duo iron is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

Although much of the attention in Scotland has been on the absolute bin-fire being suffered by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the situation at Ibrox has resulted in that the title holders' slightly less terminal decay has been allowed to fester below the radar. The reigning champions have already dropped 10 points from nine fixtures this season under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has acquired the thousand-yard stare of a individual who can't stop consulting his schedule to see how many time are remaining until his deal expires, and awoke this day to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure at the club," he told reporters following the loss, after they had questioned his desire for any kind of a title fight. "Therefore the drive is there to attempt to flip the standards that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the dreadful beginning to the campaign being experienced by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could typically be expected to get away with their own failure to start strongly, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has joined the fray. Despite being obliged to function with a budget that isn't so much a small portion of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have introduced the money and expertise of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership mix. As well as investing ten million pounds during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted Hearts exclusive use of his top secret analytics-based Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to unearth unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the combined cost of a mid-range family saloon. Seen at their home venue on matchday wearing a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be observed celebrating each goal with the enthusiasm of a person who had almost certainly noticed the bookies had massively misjudged his side's chances of beating the out-of-sorts champions, and placed large bets accordingly.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his side's most recent victory, their eighth in nine league matches. "It might be for others on the periphery. It might change opinions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. But let's not kid ourselves, we're really pleased with what the players have given us. In terms of skill, we appear in a strong position, and certainly in fitness we seem in a excellent shape, so long may that continue. Naturally, this is not a situation that this club is used to being in." Correct, Derek, it is not. But the wonderful, data-driven truth is that for the initial occasion in many years, the Scottish game might actually have a championship battle that somebody other than Celtic or Rangers can win.