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JAMBOS BLAZING

Maybe the sole surprising element of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was just how surprised people seemed when reports of the outcome and its consequences for the top of the table emerged. While this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which puts the Jambos leading of the league and eight points clear of Celtic, was seismic in scale, no one who has been tracking the fortunes of both team this season will have been even remotely astonished by the result.

For each of the last 40 seasons, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish football between them, turning fitba to something of a joke in the meantime. Several matches into the current season it has become clear that Hearts – who number Stephen Hendry, Sir Chris Hoy and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – might just be prepared to make their move while the Old Firm iron is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

While much of the focus in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being endured by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the circumstances at Ibrox has resulted in that the title holders' comparatively less severe decline has been allowed to fester unnoticed. The reigning champions have so far lost a considerable number from their opening nine fixtures this season under their manager. The Celtic manager has developed the thousand-yard stare of a individual who can't stop consulting his Google calendar to see how many time are remaining until his deal ends, and awoke this day to learn the answer is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure at the club," he told the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for anything resembling a championship battle. "Therefore the drive is there to try and flip the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the dreadful beginning to the season being endured by Rangers, Rodgers and his men could typically be expected to escape scrutiny for their own failure to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the mix. In spite of being forced to operate with a war-chest that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have added the investment and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL equation. In addition to putting in ten million pounds during the off-season, the Brighton owner has provided Hearts exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In Oisin McEntee, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to unearth 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. Spotted at Tynecastle on Sunday sporting a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be observed cheering each score with the gusto of a man who had almost certainly noticed the bookies had greatly underestimated his team's chances of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and filled his boots accordingly.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"I don't think 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. "Perhaps it is for others on the periphery. It might change perceptions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the players have given us. In terms of skill, we appear in a strong position, and definitely in fitness we seem in a excellent shape, so long may that continue. Of course, this is not a situation that the team is used to being in." No, the manager, it isn't. But the glorious, analytics-backed truth is that for the initial occasion in ages, the Scottish game might actually have a championship battle that somebody besides the traditional powers can win.