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JAMBOS BLAZING

Maybe the sole unexpected aspect of Hearts' triumph over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which surprised observers seemed when news of the result and its consequences for the summit of the standings emerged. Although this 3-1 win at Tynecastle, which leaves the Jambos top 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 result.

For each of the last four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish league between them, turning fitba to almost a joke in the process. Several matches into the current campaign it has become clear that Hearts – who count Stephen Hendry, Sir Chris Hoy and renowned actor among their famous supporters – might just be prepared to strike while the Glasgow duo iron is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

Although much of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being endured by the Ibrox club, the full-spectrum nightmare of the situation at Ibrox has resulted in that the title holders' slightly less terminal decay has been allowed to worsen below the radar. The reigning champions have so far lost a considerable number from their opening nine fixtures this term under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has developed the distant look of a individual who can't stop consulting his Google calendar to find out how many time are remaining until his contract expires, and woke up this day to learn the answer is 246.

"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure here," he informed the media following the loss, after they had doubted his desire for anything resembling a championship battle. "So the motivation is present to attempt to reverse the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

NEW CHALLENGER

Considering the dreadful start to the campaign being experienced by the other Glasgow side, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be expected to escape scrutiny for their own failure to roar out of the traps, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the mix. Despite being forced to operate with a budget that is not just a small portion of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have added the investment and knowledge of a renowned businessman to the SPL equation. In addition to investing ten million pounds during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted Hearts sole use of his top secret data-driven Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to discover hidden talents from Walsall, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other lesser-known leagues, for the total price of a modest car. Seen at their home venue on Sunday wearing a club colours, the notoriously astute sports betting expert could be observed cheering each score with the gusto of a person who had likely realized the bookies had greatly misjudged his team's chances of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and filled his boots accordingly.

COACH'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's latest victory, their eighth in nine outings. "It might be for others on the periphery. It could alter perceptions. It may confirm opinions that there's a fine line. But let's not kid ourselves, we're really pleased with what the lads have given us. Technically, we appear in a good place, and certainly in fitness we seem in a good place, so long may that continue. Naturally, this is not a situation that this club is used to being in." Correct, the manager, it is not. But the glorious, analytics-backed 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 claim.