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JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the only surprising aspect of Hearts' victory over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was just how surprised people appeared when news of the result and its consequences for the top of the table emerged. While this 3-1 win at Tynecastle, which leaves the Edinburgh side leading of the table and eight points ahead of their rivals, was seismic in scale, no one who has been following the progress of both team this season will have been even remotely astonished by the final score.

Over the last four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish league between them, reducing the beautiful game to almost a joke in the process. Nine games into the current campaign it has become apparent that Heart of Midlothian – who count celebrated snooker player, Sir Chris Hoy and renowned actor among their celebrity fans – could be ready to strike while the Glasgow duo iron is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

While a lot of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being suffered by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the situation at Ibrox has resulted in that the title holders' comparatively less severe decay has been able to worsen unnoticed. The defending title winners have so far lost 10 points from their opening nine league games this season under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has developed the distant look of a individual who can't stop consulting his Google calendar to see how many time are remaining until his deal expires, and woke up this day to learn the number is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure here," he informed the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for any kind of a title fight. "Therefore the drive is present to try and reverse the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the dreadful beginning to the campaign being experienced by Rangers, Rodgers and his men could normally be anticipated to get away with their own inability to start strongly, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the fray. In spite of being forced to function with a budget that isn't so much a small portion of their rivals' as a minuscule amount in comparison, the Tynecastle outfit have added the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership equation. As well as investing £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has provided the club exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, 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 mid-range family saloon. Seen at Tynecastle on matchday sporting a Hearts scarf, the notoriously astute sports betting expert could be seen cheering each goal with the gusto of a person who had likely realized the bookies had greatly underestimated his side's prospects of defeating the out-of-sorts title holders, and placed large bets as a result.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said bearded Hearts gaffer the head coach after his side's latest success, their eighth in nine outings. "It might be for others on the periphery. It could alter opinions. It might validate views that there's a tightrope. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the lads have provided us. In terms of skill, we appear in a good place, and certainly physically we seem in a good place, so long may that continue. Of course, it's not a position that this club is accustomed to being in." No, Derek, it is not. But the wonderful, analytics-backed truth is that for the first time in many years, Scottish football might genuinely have a title race that somebody other than the traditional powers can win.