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HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the only unexpected element of Heart of Midlothian's victory over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which taken aback people seemed when reports of the result and its consequences for the summit of the table circulated. While this convincing victory at their home ground, which leaves the Edinburgh side leading of the league and eight points ahead of Celtic, was seismic in scale, no one who has been tracking the fortunes of both squad this season will have been in the least astonished by the final score.

Over the past 40 seasons, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish football between them, turning the beautiful game to something of a joke in the meantime. Nine games into the present campaign it has become clear that Heart of Midlothian – who number celebrated snooker player, 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.

THE CHAMPIONS' SLUMP

While a lot of the focus in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being endured by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the situation at their stadium has resulted in that Celtic's comparatively less severe decay has been able to worsen unnoticed. The defending title winners have so far lost a considerable number from nine fixtures this term under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has acquired the thousand-yard stare of a man who can't stop consulting his schedule to see how many time are remaining until his deal ends, and woke up this morning to discover the number is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure here," he informed reporters following the loss, after they had doubted his desire for any kind of a title fight. "So the motivation is present to attempt to flip the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, it's still so early."

NEW CHALLENGER

Given the horrific beginning to the season being endured by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could typically be expected to get away with their own inability to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has entered the fray. Despite being obliged to operate with a war-chest that isn't so much a small portion of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have introduced the money and expertise of a renowned businessman to the SPL equation. In addition to investing £10m during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted Hearts sole use of his top secret analytics-based proprietary scouting player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and a Brazilian prospect it has enabled them to discover hidden talents from Walsall, the Slovakian top flight 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 matchday wearing a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be seen cheering each score with the gusto of a person who had almost certainly noticed the bookies had massively underestimated his side's prospects of beating the struggling title holders, and placed large bets as a result.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"In my opinion it's a statement win," said the facial-haired team manager Derek McInnes after his team's latest victory, their eighth win in nine league matches. "It might be for others on the outside looking in. It could alter opinions. It might validate opinions that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the players have provided us. Technically, we appear in a good place, and certainly physically we look in a good place, so long may that continue. Naturally, this is not a situation that the team is used to being in." No, the manager, it is not. But the glorious, data-driven truth is that for the first time in many years, the Scottish game might genuinely have a championship battle that somebody besides Celtic or Rangers can claim.