🔗 Share this article

HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the only surprising aspect of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was just how taken aback observers seemed when reports of the result and its consequences for the top of the standings emerged. While this convincing victory at their home ground, which puts the Edinburgh side top of the table and eight points clear of Celtic, was seismic in scale, no one who has been tracking the progress of either team this campaign will have been even remotely astonished by the result.

For each of the last four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of the Old Firm have carved up the Scottish league between them, turning the beautiful game to almost a punchline in the meantime. Nine games into the current season it has become apparent that Hearts – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and renowned actor among their famous supporters – might just be prepared to make their move while the Glasgow duo iron is freezing cold.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

While much of the focus in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being suffered by the Ibrox club, the full-spectrum nightmare of the circumstances at their stadium has meant that Celtic's comparatively less severe decline has been able to worsen below the radar. The reigning champions have already dropped a considerable number from nine fixtures this season under their manager. The team's boss has acquired the thousand-yard stare of a man who can't stop checking his schedule to find out how many days are remaining until his deal expires, and woke up this morning to learn the answer is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure at the club," he told reporters following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for any kind of a title fight. "So the motivation is there to try and flip the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, it's still so early."

NEW CHALLENGER

Considering the horrific start to the campaign being experienced by Rangers, Rodgers and his men could typically be expected to escape scrutiny for their own failure to roar out of the traps, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the fray. In spite of being obliged to function with a budget that isn't so much a small portion of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have added the investment and expertise of a renowned businessman to the SPL mix. In addition to investing ten million pounds during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has granted Hearts exclusive use of his highly confidential analytics-based Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In Oisin McEntee, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has allowed 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. Spotted at Tynecastle on Sunday sporting a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be seen celebrating each goal with the gusto of a person who had almost certainly realized the bookies had massively underestimated his team's chances of beating the struggling champions, and placed large bets as a result.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired team manager the head coach after his side's latest victory, their eighth in nine outings. "It might be for those on the outside looking in. It could alter opinions. It might validate views that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the players have given us. Technically, we appear in a strong position, 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, Derek, it isn't. But the glorious, analytics-backed truth is that for the initial occasion in many years, the Scottish game might genuinely have a championship battle that a team besides the traditional powers can claim.