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HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the only unexpected aspect of Hearts' victory over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was just how taken aback people appeared when reports of the result and its consequences for the summit of the table emerged. Although this 3-1 win at their home ground, which puts the Edinburgh side top of the table and eight points clear of their rivals, was earth-shattering in nature, nobody who has been tracking the progress of either team this campaign will have been in the least astonished by the result.

For each of the past four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of the Old Firm have carved up the Scottish football between them, reducing fitba to almost a punchline in the meantime. Nine games into the present season it has become apparent that Hearts – who number celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – could be prepared to make their move while the Old Firm iron is at its weakest.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

While a lot of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the absolute bin-fire being endured by the Ibrox club, the complete turmoil of the circumstances at their stadium has resulted in that the title holders' slightly less terminal decay has been able to fester below the radar. The defending title winners have so far lost 10 points from nine fixtures this term under their manager. The team's boss has developed the distant look of a man who can't stop checking his Google calendar to see how many days are left until his contract expires, and woke up this morning to learn the answer is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in all my time at the club," he informed the media following the loss, after they had doubted his desire for any kind of a title fight. "Therefore the drive is there to attempt to flip the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

NEW CHALLENGER

Considering the dreadful start to the campaign being endured by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be anticipated to get away with their own failure to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has joined the fray. In spite of being obliged to function with a budget that isn't so much a small portion of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have introduced the money and knowledge of a renowned businessman to the Scottish Premiership mix. As well as investing £10m during the off-season, the Brighton owner has granted the club exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven proprietary scouting player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to unearth unpolished gems 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 mid-range family saloon. Spotted at Tynecastle on matchday sporting a club colours, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be seen celebrating each score with the gusto of a person who had likely noticed the bookies had greatly misjudged his team's prospects of beating the out-of-sorts champions, and placed large bets accordingly.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a statement win," said the facial-haired team manager Derek McInnes after his side's most recent success, their eighth win in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for others on the periphery. It could alter perceptions. It might validate views that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the players have given us. Technically, we look in a strong position, and certainly physically we seem in a good place, so we hope it persists. Naturally, this is not a situation that this club is used to being in." Correct, the manager, it is not. But the glorious, data-driven truth is that for the first time in many years, Scottish football might genuinely have a championship battle that somebody besides the traditional powers can win.