🔗 Share this article

HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the sole unexpected aspect of Hearts' victory over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which taken aback observers appeared when news of the result and its impact for the summit of the standings emerged. While this 3-1 win at their home ground, which puts the Edinburgh side top of the league and a significant margin ahead of Celtic, was seismic in scale, nobody who has been following the fortunes of both squad this season will have been in the least astonished by the final score.

Over the last 40 seasons, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish football between them, turning the beautiful game to something of a joke in the process. Nine games into the present campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – might just be ready to strike while the Glasgow duo influence is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

While much of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being suffered by the Ibrox club, the complete turmoil of the circumstances at Ibrox has resulted in that the title holders' comparatively less severe decline has been able to worsen below the radar. The defending title winners have so far dropped a considerable number from nine league games this term under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has developed the distant look of a man who constantly checking his Google calendar to find out how many days are remaining until his contract ends, and woke up this day to discover the number is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in all my time here," he informed the media following the defeat, after they had questioned his appetite for any kind of a championship battle. "Therefore the drive is present to try and flip the levels that we're at. It's absolutely fine, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the dreadful beginning to the season being endured by Rangers, Rodgers and his men could typically be expected to get away with their own inability to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has entered the fray. In spite of being obliged to operate with a war-chest that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have introduced the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership mix. In addition to investing ten million pounds during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted Hearts exclusive use of his top secret data-driven proprietary scouting player identification system.

In an Irish defender, a Greek talent and a Brazilian prospect it has allowed 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 modest car. Spotted at Tynecastle on Sunday wearing a Hearts scarf, the notoriously astute sports betting expert could be observed cheering each score with the gusto of a man who had likely noticed the oddsmakers had massively underestimated his team's chances of defeating the out-of-sorts title holders, and placed large bets accordingly.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a statement win," said bearded Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his team's most recent victory, their eighth win in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for others on the periphery. It might change opinions. It may confirm views that there's a fine line. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the players have provided us. Technically, we appear in a good place, and definitely in fitness we seem in a good place, so we hope it persists. Naturally, this is not a situation that the team is accustomed to being in." No, Derek, it is not. But the glorious, data-driven reality is that for the initial occasion in ages, Scottish football might genuinely have a title race that a team other than the traditional powers can win.