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JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the sole unexpected aspect of Hearts' victory over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was just how taken aback observers appeared when reports of the result and its consequences for the top of the table emerged. Although this 3-1 win at Tynecastle, which puts the Edinburgh side leading of the league and a significant margin ahead of their rivals, was seismic in scale, no one who has been tracking the progress of either squad this campaign will have been in the least astonished by the result.

Over the past four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of the Old Firm have carved up the Scottish football between them, reducing fitba to almost a joke in the meantime. Nine games into the current campaign it has become clear that Heart of Midlothian – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and renowned actor among their famous supporters – could be prepared to strike while the Old Firm influence is at its weakest.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

While much of the focus in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being suffered by the Ibrox club, the full-spectrum nightmare of the situation at Ibrox has meant that the title holders' slightly less terminal decline has been allowed to worsen below the radar. The defending title winners have already lost a considerable number from nine league games this term under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has developed the distant look of a individual who can't stop checking his Google calendar to see how many days are remaining until his deal expires, and woke up this morning to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in all my time at the club," he informed reporters following the defeat, after they had doubted his desire for anything resembling a championship battle. "So the motivation is there to try and flip the levels that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the horrific start to the season being endured by Rangers, Rodgers and his men could normally be expected to escape scrutiny for their own inability to roar out of the traps, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the mix. Despite being forced to operate with a war-chest that isn't so much a tiny fraction of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have introduced the investment and expertise of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership mix. As well as investing £10m during the off-season, the Brighton owner has granted Hearts exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven proprietary scouting recruitment tool.

In Oisin McEntee, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has allowed 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 total price of a mid-range family saloon. Seen at Tynecastle on matchday sporting a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be observed cheering each score with the gusto of a person who had almost certainly realized the oddsmakers had massively misjudged his side's prospects of beating the struggling title holders, and filled his boots accordingly.

COACH'S RESPONSE

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said bearded team manager Derek McInnes after his team's most recent success, their eighth in nine league matches. "Perhaps it is for others on the outside looking in. It could alter perceptions. It may confirm views that there's a fine line. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the lads 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, it's not a position that this club is used to being in." Correct, the manager, it isn't. But the glorious, data-driven truth is that for the initial occasion in ages, Scottish football might actually have a title race that a team other than the traditional powers can win.