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JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the sole surprising element of Hearts' victory over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which taken aback people seemed when reports of the outcome and its impact for the top of the standings emerged. Although this 3-1 win at Tynecastle, which leaves the Jambos top of the table and eight points clear of their rivals, was seismic in nature, no one who has been tracking the fortunes of both team this campaign will have been even remotely shocked by the final score.

For each of the past four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish league between them, reducing fitba to something of a joke in the meantime. Nine games into the current campaign it has become clear that Heart of Midlothian – who number celebrated snooker player, Sir Chris Hoy and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – could be prepared to strike while the Old Firm iron is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

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 Ibrox has meant that the title holders' comparatively less severe decay has been able to fester below the radar. The reigning champions 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 man who can't stop checking his Google calendar to see how many time are left until his contract ends, and woke up this morning to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure at the club," he informed the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for anything resembling a title fight. "Therefore the drive is present to attempt to reverse the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the dreadful start to the campaign being endured by the other Glasgow side, Rodgers and his players could normally be expected to get away with their own failure to start strongly, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has joined the mix. Despite being obliged to operate with a budget that isn't so much a small portion of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have added the investment and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL mix. In addition to investing ten million pounds during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has granted the club sole use of his highly confidential analytics-based proprietary scouting recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, Alexandros Kyziridis and a Brazilian prospect it has enabled them to unearth hidden talents from Walsall, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the total price of a mid-range family saloon. Spotted at their home venue on Sunday wearing a club colours, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be seen celebrating each goal with the enthusiasm of a person who had likely noticed the bookies had greatly underestimated his side's prospects of beating the struggling title holders, and placed large bets accordingly.

COACH'S REACTION

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's most recent victory, their eighth win in nine league matches. "It might be for those on the outside looking in. It might change opinions. It may confirm views that there's a tightrope. But let's not kid ourselves, we're really pleased with what the players have given us. Technically, we look in a good place, and certainly in fitness we seem in a good place, so long may that continue. Naturally, it's not a position that the team is accustomed to being in." Correct, Derek, it is not. But the wonderful, data-driven truth is that for the initial occasion in many years, the Scottish game might actually have a championship battle that a team besides Celtic or Rangers can claim.