🔗 Share this article

HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the only surprising element of Hearts' victory over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was just how surprised people seemed when news of the outcome and its impact for the summit of the table emerged. Although this 3-1 win at their home ground, which puts the Edinburgh side leading 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 shocked by the final score.

Over the past 40 seasons, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish football between them, turning the beautiful game to almost a punchline in the process. Several matches into the present season it has become clear that Heart of Midlothian – who count celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and renowned actor among their famous supporters – could be prepared to make their move while the Old Firm influence is freezing cold.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

Although a lot of the focus in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being suffered by the Ibrox club, the complete turmoil of the situation at Ibrox has resulted in that Celtic's slightly less terminal decay has been able to worsen unnoticed. The reigning champions have already dropped 10 points from nine league games this season under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has acquired the thousand-yard stare of a man who constantly checking his Google calendar to find out how many days are left until his deal ends, and woke up this day to discover the number is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in all my time at the club," he informed the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for any kind of a championship battle. "So the motivation is there to try and reverse the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the dreadful start to the campaign being experienced by the other Glasgow side, the Celtic boss and his players could normally be expected to escape scrutiny for their own failure to roar out of the traps, but this year an capital city challenger has joined the fray. Despite being obliged to operate with a war-chest that is not just a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have added the investment and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL mix. As well as investing £10m during the summer, the Brighton owner has provided Hearts sole use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In an Irish defender, a Greek talent and a Brazilian prospect it has enabled them to unearth unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the combined cost of a mid-range family saloon. Spotted at their home venue on matchday sporting a club colours, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be seen cheering each goal with the gusto of a man who had almost certainly realized the oddsmakers had massively misjudged his team's prospects of beating the out-of-sorts champions, and placed large bets accordingly.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his team's latest success, their eighth win in nine league matches. "It might be for those on the periphery. It could alter opinions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. 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 certainly physically we seem in a good place, so long may that continue. Of course, this is not a situation that the team is accustomed to being in." No, Derek, it isn't. But the wonderful, data-driven reality is that for the first time in many years, Scottish football might genuinely have a title race that somebody other than Celtic or Rangers can win.