🔗 Share this article

JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the only unexpected aspect of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over Celtic in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which taken aback people appeared when reports of the result and its impact for the summit of the table emerged. While this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which puts the Jambos leading of the table and eight points 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 shocked by the result.

Over the past 40 seasons, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish league between them, reducing the beautiful game to something of a joke in the process. Several matches into the current campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who count celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – could be prepared to strike while the Old Firm influence is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

Although a lot of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being endured by the Ibrox club, the full-spectrum nightmare of the circumstances at their stadium has resulted in that the title holders' slightly less terminal decline has been able to fester below the radar. The reigning champions have so far lost 10 points from nine fixtures this season under their manager. The team's boss has acquired the distant look of a man who can't stop checking his schedule to find out how many time are remaining until his contract expires, and awoke this day to discover the number is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in all my time here," he told the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his desire for any kind of a title fight. "So the motivation is there 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 Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could typically be expected to escape scrutiny for their own inability to start strongly, but on this occasion an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the fray. Despite being forced to function with a war-chest that isn't so much a small portion of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have introduced the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL equation. As well as putting in £10m during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has provided Hearts exclusive use of his highly confidential analytics-based proprietary scouting player identification system.

In an Irish defender, Alexandros Kyziridis and a Brazilian prospect it has allowed them to discover unpolished gems from Walsall, the Slovak first division and the Norway's second division, among other lesser-known leagues, for the total price of a modest car. Spotted at Tynecastle on Sunday sporting a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be seen celebrating each goal with the enthusiasm of a person who had almost certainly realized the bookies had massively misjudged his team's prospects of beating the struggling title holders, and placed large bets accordingly.

COACH'S REACTION

"In my opinion it's a statement win," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's latest success, their eighth win in nine outings. "It might be for those on the outside looking in. It might change opinions. It might validate opinions that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the players have given us. In terms of skill, we look in a good place, and definitely in fitness we seem in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Of course, it's not a position that the team is accustomed to being in." Correct, Derek, it is not. But the glorious, analytics-backed reality is that for the first time in ages, the Scottish game might genuinely have a championship battle that a team besides Celtic or Rangers can win.