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HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the only surprising element of Hearts' triumph over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was just how taken aback people seemed when reports of the result and its impact for the top of the standings emerged. While this convincing victory at their home ground, which puts the Jambos leading of the league and a significant margin ahead of Celtic, was earth-shattering in nature, nobody who has been following the progress of either squad this season will have been even remotely astonished by the final score.

Over the last 40 seasons, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of the Old Firm have divided the Scottish league between them, turning the beautiful game to something of a punchline in the process. Nine games into the current campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who count Stephen Hendry, Sir Chris Hoy and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – could be ready to make their move while the Old Firm influence is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S SLUMP

While a lot of the attention in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being endured 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 allowed to worsen unnoticed. The defending title winners have so far lost a considerable number from nine fixtures this term under their manager. The Celtic manager has developed the distant look of a individual who can't stop consulting his Google calendar to find out how many time are left until his deal expires, and woke up this day to learn the number is 246.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure at the club," he informed the media following the loss, after they had questioned his desire for anything resembling a championship battle. "So the motivation is there to attempt to reverse the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the horrific start to the season being endured by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be anticipated to get away with their own inability to roar out of the traps, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the mix. Despite being obliged to operate with a war-chest that isn't so much a tiny fraction of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have introduced the investment and knowledge of a renowned businessman to the Scottish Premiership equation. In addition to investing £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has provided Hearts sole use of his highly confidential analytics-based Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, a Greek talent and a Brazilian prospect it has allowed them to unearth hidden talents from an English lower-league side, the Slovak first division and the Norway's second division, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the total price of a mid-range family saloon. Seen at Tynecastle on Sunday sporting a club colours, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be seen cheering each goal with the gusto of a man who had almost certainly noticed the oddsmakers had massively misjudged his team's chances of beating the struggling title holders, and placed large bets as a result.

COACH'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a statement win," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his team's latest victory, their eighth in nine league matches. "It might be for those on the outside looking in. It might change perceptions. It may confirm views that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the lads have given us. In terms of skill, we appear in a good place, and definitely physically we look in a good place, so long may that continue. Naturally, it's not a position that this club is accustomed to being in." Correct, Derek, it isn't. But the wonderful, analytics-backed reality is that for the initial occasion in many years, the Scottish game might genuinely have a championship battle that somebody other than the traditional powers can claim.