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JAMBOS BLAZING

Maybe the sole unexpected aspect of Hearts' victory over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which surprised people appeared when reports of the outcome and its impact for the top of the table circulated. While this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which puts the Jambos leading of the table and a significant margin ahead of their rivals, was earth-shattering in nature, nobody who has been tracking the fortunes of both squad this season will have been in the least shocked by the final score.

For each of the last four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of the Old Firm have divided the Scottish football between them, turning the beautiful game to almost a joke in the meantime. Several matches into the present season it has become clear that Heart of Midlothian – who count celebrated snooker player, Sir Chris Hoy and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – could be prepared to make their move while the Glasgow duo iron is at its weakest.

CELTIC'S SLUMP

Although a lot of the focus in the Scottish game has been on the absolute bin-fire being endured by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the circumstances at Ibrox has resulted in that the title holders' slightly less terminal decline has been allowed to worsen below the radar. The reigning champions have so far dropped 10 points from nine fixtures this term under their manager. The Celtic manager has developed the thousand-yard stare of a man who constantly consulting his Google calendar to find out how many time are left until his contract ends, and woke up this day to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in all my time at the club," he told the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his desire for any kind of a championship battle. "So the motivation is present to try and flip the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the horrific beginning to the campaign being experienced by the other Glasgow side, Rodgers and his players could typically be expected to get away with their own failure to start strongly, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the fray. Despite being obliged to operate with a war-chest that is not just a tiny fraction of their rivals' as a minuscule amount in comparison, the Tynecastle outfit have added the money and expertise of a renowned businessman to the SPL equation. As well as putting in £10m during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted the club exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to discover hidden talents 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. Seen at their home venue on Sunday sporting a Hearts scarf, the notoriously astute professional gambler could be observed celebrating each goal with the gusto of a man who had almost certainly noticed the bookies had massively misjudged his side's prospects of defeating the out-of-sorts title holders, and filled his boots as a result.

COACH'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's most recent success, their eighth win in nine outings. "It might be for others on the outside looking in. It could alter opinions. It may confirm opinions that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the players have provided us. In terms of skill, we appear in a strong position, and certainly in fitness we look 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, the manager, 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 besides the traditional powers can win.