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HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the sole surprising aspect of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was just how taken aback people seemed when news of the result and its impact for the top of the table circulated. While this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which puts the Jambos leading of the league and eight points clear of Celtic, was seismic in nature, nobody who has been following the progress of either squad this season will have been even remotely astonished by the result.

Over the past 40 seasons, the Glasgow duopoly of the Old Firm have carved up the Scottish football between them, reducing the beautiful game to something of a joke in the meantime. Several matches into the present campaign it has become clear that Heart of Midlothian – who count celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and renowned actor among their celebrity fans – might just be ready to make their move while the Glasgow duo iron is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

Although much 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 comparatively less severe decay has been able to fester unnoticed. The defending title winners have so far lost 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 Google calendar to find out how many time are left until his contract 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 informed the media following the loss, after they had doubted his desire for any kind of a title fight. "Therefore the drive is present to try and reverse the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, there is plenty of time."

NEW CHALLENGER

Considering the horrific beginning to the season being experienced by Rangers, Rodgers and his players could normally be anticipated to get away with their own inability to roar out of the traps, but this year an capital city challenger has joined the mix. In spite of being forced to operate with a budget 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 off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted the club sole use of his highly confidential analytics-based Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to unearth hidden talents from an English lower-league side, the Slovakian top flight and the Norway's second division, among other lesser-known leagues, for the combined cost of a mid-range family saloon. Seen at Tynecastle on Sunday wearing a club colours, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be seen cheering each score with the gusto of a man who had almost certainly realized the oddsmakers had massively misjudged his team's prospects of defeating the struggling title holders, and placed large bets accordingly.

COACH'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his side's latest success, their eighth in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for those on the periphery. It could alter opinions. It might validate views that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the lads have provided us. Technically, we look in a good place, and definitely physically we look in a good place, so long may that continue. Naturally, this is not a situation that the team is accustomed to being in." Correct, the manager, it isn't. But the wonderful, analytics-backed reality is that for the first time in many years, the Scottish game might actually have a title race that somebody besides Celtic or Rangers can claim.