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HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the only surprising element of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was just how taken aback observers seemed when reports of the result and its impact for the top of the table emerged. Although this 3-1 win at their home ground, which leaves the Jambos leading of the league and a significant margin ahead of Celtic, was seismic in scale, nobody who has been tracking the progress of either squad this season will have been in the least astonished by the final score.

For each of the last four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish league between them, reducing the beautiful game to almost a joke in the process. Nine games into the present campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who count celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – might just be ready to strike while the Old Firm influence is freezing cold.

THE CHAMPIONS' SLUMP

Although a lot of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the absolute bin-fire being endured by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the circumstances 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 already dropped a considerable number from their opening nine fixtures this season under their manager. The team's boss has acquired the distant look of a individual who constantly consulting his Google calendar to find out how many time are remaining until his deal ends, and awoke this morning to learn the number is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in all my time here," he informed reporters following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for any kind of a title fight. "So the motivation is there to try and reverse the standards that we're at. Everything is under control, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the horrific start to the season being experienced by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be anticipated to escape scrutiny for their own failure to roar out of the traps, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the mix. Despite being obliged to function with a budget that isn't so much a small portion of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have added the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL mix. As well as putting in £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has provided Hearts sole use of his top secret analytics-based Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In an Irish defender, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has enabled 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 mid-range family saloon. Spotted at Tynecastle on Sunday wearing a club colours, the notoriously astute sports betting expert could be observed cheering each goal with the enthusiasm of a man who had likely noticed the oddsmakers had massively misjudged his team's chances of beating the out-of-sorts title holders, and filled his boots accordingly.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his side's latest victory, their eighth in nine league matches. "Perhaps it is for those on the periphery. It could alter opinions. 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. Technically, we look in a good place, and certainly in fitness we seem in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Naturally, it's not a position that this club is used to being in." No, Derek, it is not. But the glorious, data-driven reality is that for the initial occasion in many years, the Scottish game might genuinely have a title race that somebody besides Celtic or Rangers can win.