🔗 Share this article

JAMBOS BLAZING

Maybe the only unexpected element of Hearts' triumph over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was just how surprised observers appeared when news of the result and its impact for the top of the standings circulated. While this 3-1 win at Tynecastle, which leaves the Edinburgh side top of the table and a significant margin ahead of their rivals, was earth-shattering in nature, no one who has been tracking the progress of both team this campaign will have been even remotely astonished by the final score.

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 something of a punchline in the meantime. Nine games into the current campaign it has become clear that Hearts – who count Stephen Hendry, Sir Chris Hoy and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – could be ready to make their move while the Old Firm influence is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S SLUMP

Although a lot of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being endured by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the circumstances at Ibrox has resulted in that the title holders' slightly less terminal decay has been able to worsen unnoticed. The defending title winners have already dropped a considerable number from their opening nine fixtures this term under their manager. The Celtic manager has acquired the distant look of a individual who can't stop checking his Google calendar to see how many days are remaining until his contract expires, and awoke this day to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in all my time at the club," he informed the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for anything resembling a championship battle. "Therefore the drive is there to attempt to reverse the standards that we're at. Everything is under control, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the dreadful beginning to the season being experienced by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his players could typically be expected to get away with their own failure to start strongly, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has joined the mix. In spite of being obliged to operate with a budget that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have added the investment and knowledge of a renowned businessman to the Scottish Premiership mix. As well as investing £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has provided the club exclusive use of his highly confidential analytics-based proprietary scouting recruitment tool.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to discover unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the total price of a mid-range family saloon. Seen at Tynecastle on Sunday sporting a club colours, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be seen celebrating each score with the enthusiasm of a person who had likely realized the oddsmakers had massively misjudged his team's chances of defeating the out-of-sorts title holders, and filled his boots accordingly.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his team's latest victory, their eighth in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for others on the periphery. It might change opinions. It may confirm opinions that there's a fine line. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the lads have given us. Technically, we look in a good place, and certainly physically we seem in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Naturally, this is not a situation that the team is accustomed to being in." Correct, Derek, it isn't. But the glorious, analytics-backed reality is that for the first time in many years, Scottish football might actually have a title race that somebody other than Celtic or Rangers can win.