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JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the sole unexpected element of Heart of Midlothian's victory over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which surprised observers appeared when reports of the result and its impact for the summit of the standings circulated. Although this 3-1 win at Tynecastle, which leaves the Jambos leading of the league and eight points clear of their rivals, was seismic in scale, no one who has been tracking the progress of either squad this campaign will have been even remotely shocked by the result.

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 fitba to almost a joke in the meantime. Nine games into the current season it has become apparent that Hearts – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and renowned actor among their famous supporters – could be prepared to make their move while the Glasgow duo influence is at its weakest.

CELTIC'S SLUMP

While a lot of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the absolute bin-fire being suffered by the Ibrox club, the complete turmoil of the situation at their stadium has resulted in that Celtic's comparatively less severe decline has been able to fester below the radar. The defending title winners have so far dropped a considerable number from their opening nine league games this term under their manager. The team's boss has developed the thousand-yard stare of a man who can't stop consulting his schedule to see how many time are remaining until his contract ends, and awoke this day to discover the number is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure at the club," he informed the media following the defeat, after they had questioned his desire for anything resembling a title fight. "Therefore the drive is there to try and reverse the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the horrific start to the season being experienced by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be expected to escape scrutiny for their own failure to start strongly, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the fray. In spite of being obliged to function with a budget that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a minuscule amount in comparison, Hearts have added the money and expertise of a renowned businessman to the Scottish Premiership equation. In addition to putting in £10m during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has provided the club exclusive use of his top secret analytics-based Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In an Irish defender, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to unearth hidden talents from an English lower-league side, the Slovak first division and the Norway's second division, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the total price of a modest car. Spotted at Tynecastle on Sunday wearing a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be observed cheering each goal with the enthusiasm of a person who had almost certainly realized the oddsmakers had massively misjudged his team's prospects of defeating the out-of-sorts title holders, and filled his boots as a result.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired team manager the head coach after his team's most recent victory, their eighth in nine outings. "It might be for those 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're really pleased with what the players have given us. Technically, we appear in a strong position, and definitely physically we seem in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Naturally, it's not a position that this club is accustomed to being in." Correct, the manager, it is not. But the glorious, analytics-backed reality is that for the first time in many years, Scottish football might actually have a title race that a team besides Celtic or Rangers can claim.