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HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the only unexpected element of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was just how surprised people appeared when news of the result and its consequences for the top of the table emerged. Although this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which leaves the Jambos top of the league and eight points clear of their rivals, was earth-shattering in scale, nobody who has been following the progress of both squad this season will have been even remotely astonished by the final score.

For each of the last 40 seasons, the Glasgow duopoly of the Old Firm have divided the Scottish football between them, reducing fitba to almost a punchline in the meantime. Nine games into the current season it has become apparent that Hearts – who count celebrated snooker player, Sir Chris Hoy and renowned actor among their celebrity fans – could be ready to make their move while the Glasgow duo iron is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

While a lot of the focus in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being suffered by the Ibrox club, the full-spectrum nightmare of the circumstances at Ibrox has resulted in that Celtic's slightly less terminal decline has been able to fester unnoticed. The defending title winners have already dropped a considerable number from nine fixtures this term under their manager. The Celtic manager has acquired the distant look of a man who can't stop consulting his schedule to find out how many time are left until his deal ends, and woke up this day to discover the number is 246.

"No one has put in more effort in all my time at the club," he informed reporters following the loss, after they had doubted his appetite for any kind of a title fight. "So the motivation is present to attempt to reverse the levels that we're at. It's absolutely fine, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the dreadful start to the season being experienced by Rangers, Rodgers and his players could typically be expected to get away with their own inability to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the mix. In spite of being forced to operate with a war-chest that isn't so much a tiny fraction of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have added the money and expertise of Tony Bloom to the SPL equation. In addition to investing £10m during the summer, the Brighton owner has granted Hearts sole use of his top secret analytics-based proprietary scouting recruitment tool.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to discover unpolished gems from Walsall, 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 notoriously astute professional gambler could be seen cheering each score with the gusto of a person who had almost certainly noticed the bookies had greatly underestimated his side's prospects of beating the out-of-sorts title holders, and filled his boots accordingly.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's most recent success, their eighth in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for those on the periphery. It could alter perceptions. It may confirm opinions that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the players have given us. In terms of skill, we appear in a good place, and definitely physically we look in a good place, so we hope it persists. Naturally, this is not a situation that the team is accustomed to being in." No, the manager, it isn't. But the glorious, data-driven truth is that for the first time in ages, the Scottish game might actually have a championship battle that a team besides Celtic or Rangers can win.