🔗 Share this article

JAMBOS BLAZING

Maybe the sole surprising aspect of Heart of Midlothian's victory over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish Premiership was just how surprised people seemed when news of the result and its consequences for the summit of the standings emerged. While this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which leaves the Edinburgh side leading of the league and a significant margin clear of Celtic, was earth-shattering in nature, nobody who has been following the progress of either team this season will have been even remotely shocked by the result.

Over the last four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish league between them, turning fitba to almost a joke in the meantime. Several matches into the present season it has become clear that Hearts – who number celebrated snooker player, Sir Chris Hoy and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – might just be prepared to make their move while the Old Firm influence is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' SLUMP

Although much of the attention in Scotland has been on the absolute bin-fire 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 fester unnoticed. The defending title winners have so far dropped 10 points from nine league games this term under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has acquired the distant look of a man who constantly consulting his schedule to see how many time are left until his contract expires, and awoke this day to discover the number is 246.

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

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the horrific start to the campaign being experienced by the other Glasgow side, the Celtic boss and his men could typically be expected to escape scrutiny for their own inability to roar out of the traps, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the fray. In spite of being obliged to operate with a budget that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a minuscule amount in comparison, the Tynecastle outfit have added the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL equation. In addition to putting in ten million pounds during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has granted Hearts exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

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 Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the combined cost of a modest car. Spotted at their home venue on matchday wearing a club colours, the notoriously astute professional gambler could be observed celebrating each score with the gusto of a man who had almost certainly noticed the bookies had massively underestimated his team's chances of defeating the struggling champions, 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 side's most recent victory, their eighth win in nine league matches. "It might be for others on the periphery. It could alter opinions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the players have given us. In terms of skill, we appear in a good place, and certainly in fitness we seem in a excellent shape, so long may that continue. Naturally, this is not a situation that the team is used to being in." No, the manager, it is not. But the wonderful, analytics-backed reality is that for the first time in many years, the Scottish game might genuinely have a title race that a team besides the traditional powers can win.