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HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the only unexpected aspect of Hearts' triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which taken aback people appeared when reports of the outcome and its impact for the top of the standings emerged. Although this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which leaves the Jambos top of the table and eight points ahead of their rivals, was seismic in nature, no one who has been following the progress of both squad this season will have been in the least astonished by the result.

For each of the last four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish football between them, reducing the beautiful game to almost a joke in the meantime. Nine games into the current campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – could be ready to strike while the Glasgow duo iron is freezing cold.

THE CHAMPIONS' SLUMP

While a lot of the focus in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being endured by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the situation at their stadium has meant that the title holders' comparatively less severe decay has been able to fester unnoticed. The reigning champions have so far dropped a considerable number from nine league games this term under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has developed the distant look of a individual who constantly consulting his Google calendar to find out how many time are left until his deal expires, and awoke this day to learn the answer is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure here," he told reporters following the defeat, after they had questioned 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 dreadful start to the campaign being experienced by the other Glasgow side, Rodgers and his men could normally be expected to escape scrutiny for their own failure to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has joined the fray. Despite being forced to operate with a budget that isn't so much a tiny fraction of their rivals' as a minuscule amount in comparison, Hearts have introduced the money and knowledge of a renowned businessman to the Scottish Premiership equation. As well as putting in ten million pounds during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has provided the club exclusive use of his top secret analytics-based proprietary scouting recruitment tool.

In Oisin McEntee, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to discover hidden talents from an English lower-league side, the Slovak first division and the Norway's second division, among other lesser-known leagues, for the total price of a mid-range family saloon. Seen at their home venue on Sunday sporting a Hearts scarf, the notoriously astute sports betting expert could be seen cheering each score with the enthusiasm of a person who had almost certainly noticed the oddsmakers had massively underestimated his side's prospects of beating the out-of-sorts champions, and filled his boots accordingly.

COACH'S RESPONSE

"In my opinion it's a statement win," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's latest victory, their eighth win in nine outings. "It might be for those on the periphery. It might change opinions. It may confirm opinions that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the players have given us. In terms of skill, we appear in a good place, and definitely 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, the manager, it isn't. But the wonderful, data-driven reality is that for the initial occasion in many years, the Scottish game might genuinely have a championship battle that a team other than the traditional powers can win.