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HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the only surprising element of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was just how taken aback people seemed when reports of the outcome and its impact for the summit of the standings circulated. While this 3-1 win at Tynecastle, which puts the Edinburgh side leading of the table and eight points clear of Celtic, was earth-shattering in nature, nobody who has been following the fortunes of both team this season will have been in the least shocked by the result.

For each of the past four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish league between them, reducing fitba to almost a joke in the meantime. Several matches into the current season it has become clear that Hearts – who number celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – could be prepared to strike while the Old Firm iron is freezing cold.

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 situation at their stadium has resulted in that the title holders' slightly less terminal decline has been able to worsen below the radar. The defending title winners have so far lost a considerable number from their opening nine league games this season under their manager. The team's boss has developed the distant look of a individual who can't stop consulting his schedule to see how many time are remaining until his contract ends, and awoke this day to learn the number is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure here," he informed reporters following the loss, after they had doubted his desire for any kind of a championship battle. "So the motivation is present to try and reverse the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the dreadful beginning to the season being experienced by the other Glasgow side, Rodgers and his men could typically be expected to get away with their own inability to start strongly, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the mix. In spite of being obliged to operate with a war-chest that is not just a small portion of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have added the investment and expertise of Tony Bloom to the SPL equation. As well as putting in £10m during the off-season, the Brighton owner has provided Hearts exclusive use of his top secret data-driven proprietary scouting player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to discover unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other lesser-known leagues, 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 seen cheering each goal with the enthusiasm of a man who had almost certainly realized the oddsmakers had massively underestimated his side's prospects of defeating the struggling title holders, and placed large bets as a result.

COACH'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a statement win," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's most recent success, their eighth in nine league matches. "Perhaps it is for those on the periphery. It might change opinions. It might validate opinions that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the players have given us. In terms of skill, we appear in a good place, and definitely physically we seem in a good place, so long may that continue. Of course, this is not a situation that this club is used to being in." No, the manager, it is not. But the glorious, analytics-backed truth is that for the first time in ages, the Scottish game might genuinely have a championship battle that somebody other than Celtic or Rangers can claim.