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JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the only unexpected element of Hearts' victory over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish Premiership was just how taken aback observers appeared when news of the result and its consequences for the top of the standings circulated. Although this 3-1 win at Tynecastle, which puts the Jambos leading of the table and eight points clear of their rivals, was earth-shattering in nature, nobody who has been following the fortunes of either team this season will have been in the least astonished by the final score.

Over the past 40 seasons, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of the Old Firm have divided the Scottish league between them, reducing fitba to almost a joke in the meantime. Nine games into the present campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – might just be prepared to make their move while the Old Firm iron is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S SLUMP

While a lot of the focus in the Scottish game has been on the absolute bin-fire being suffered by the Ibrox club, the full-spectrum nightmare of the circumstances at their stadium has resulted in that Celtic's comparatively less severe decline has been able to worsen below the radar. The reigning champions have so far dropped a considerable number from nine league games this term under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has acquired the distant look of a individual who can't stop checking his Google calendar to find out how many time are remaining until his deal ends, and awoke this day to learn the answer is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in all my time here," he told the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his desire for anything resembling a championship battle. "So the motivation 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 horrific beginning to the campaign being endured by the other Glasgow side, the Celtic boss and his men could typically be expected to get away with their own failure to roar out of the traps, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the mix. Despite being obliged to function with a war-chest that is not just a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a minuscule amount in comparison, Hearts have added the money and expertise of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership equation. As well as investing £10m during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted 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 Walsall, the Slovak first division and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the combined cost of a modest car. Seen at Tynecastle on Sunday sporting a Hearts scarf, the notoriously astute sports betting expert could be observed celebrating each score with the gusto of a man who had almost certainly realized the oddsmakers had greatly misjudged his team's prospects of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and filled his boots accordingly.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a statement win," said bearded Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's latest victory, their eighth in nine league matches. "It might be for those on the outside looking in. It could alter opinions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the players have provided us. Technically, we appear in a good place, and certainly physically we look in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Naturally, it's not a position that the team is accustomed to being in." No, Derek, it is not. But the glorious, data-driven reality is that for the initial occasion in ages, Scottish football might genuinely have a championship battle that a team besides the traditional powers can claim.