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JAMBOS BLAZING

Maybe the sole surprising element of Hearts' triumph over Celtic in the Scottish top flight was just how surprised people appeared when reports of the result and its impact for the summit of the standings emerged. While this 3-1 win at their home ground, which puts the Jambos top of the league and eight points ahead of their rivals, was seismic in scale, nobody who has been tracking the progress of both team this campaign will have been even remotely astonished by the final score.

For each of the past four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish league between them, turning the beautiful game to almost a joke in the process. Nine games into the present season it has become apparent that Hearts – who number celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and renowned actor among their celebrity fans – might just be prepared to strike while the Glasgow duo influence is freezing cold.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

While a lot of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the absolute bin-fire being endured by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the circumstances at their stadium has resulted in that Celtic's slightly less terminal decline has been able to fester unnoticed. The defending title winners have so far dropped 10 points from their opening nine league games this term under their manager. The team's boss has acquired the distant look of a man who can't stop consulting his schedule to find out how many days are left until his contract expires, and woke up this morning 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 defeat, after they had questioned his desire for any kind of a title fight. "Therefore the drive is there to try and flip the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the dreadful start to the campaign being experienced by the other Glasgow side, the Celtic boss and his players could typically be anticipated to get away with their own inability to roar out of the traps, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the fray. In spite of being forced to function 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 Scottish Premiership mix. As well as putting in £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has provided Hearts sole use of his highly confidential analytics-based Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to discover hidden talents from an English lower-league side, the Slovak first division and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the combined cost of a mid-range family saloon. Spotted at their home venue on matchday sporting a club colours, the notoriously astute sports betting expert could be seen cheering each goal with the gusto of a man who had likely realized the oddsmakers had massively underestimated his team's chances of beating the struggling title holders, and filled his boots accordingly.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a statement win," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's latest victory, their eighth in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for others on the periphery. It might change 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 look in a strong position, and definitely physically we look in a good place, so we hope it persists. Of course, this is not a situation that the team is used to being in." No, Derek, it is not. But the glorious, data-driven reality is that for the initial occasion in many years, the Scottish game might genuinely have a championship battle that a team besides the traditional powers can win.