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JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the sole surprising element of Hearts' triumph over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was just how surprised observers seemed when news 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 leading of the table and eight points ahead of Celtic, was seismic in scale, no one who has been tracking the fortunes of either team this season will have been in the least astonished by the final score.

For each of the last 40 seasons, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish league between them, reducing the beautiful game to something of a joke in the meantime. Nine games into the current season it has become apparent that Heart of Midlothian – who count Stephen Hendry, Sir Chris Hoy and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – could be prepared to strike while the Glasgow duo influence is at its weakest.

CELTIC'S SLUMP

While much of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the absolute bin-fire being suffered by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the situation at Ibrox has meant that Celtic's comparatively less severe decline has been allowed to worsen below the radar. The reigning champions have already dropped 10 points from nine fixtures this term under their manager. The team's boss has acquired the thousand-yard stare of a individual who constantly checking his schedule to see how many days are left until his contract expires, and awoke this morning to learn the number is 246.

"I've never worked harder in all my time here," he informed reporters following the loss, after they had questioned his appetite for any kind of a title fight. "Therefore the drive is present to attempt to reverse the levels that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the horrific start to the campaign being endured by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be anticipated to get away with their own failure to start strongly, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the mix. Despite being obliged to function with a war-chest that isn't so much a tiny fraction of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have added the money and expertise of Tony Bloom to the SPL mix. In addition to putting in £10m during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted the club exclusive use of his top secret data-driven proprietary scouting player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to unearth hidden talents from Walsall, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other lesser-known leagues, for the combined cost of a mid-range family saloon. Spotted at Tynecastle on Sunday sporting a club colours, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be seen cheering each score with the enthusiasm of a person who had likely noticed the oddsmakers had massively underestimated his team's prospects of defeating the struggling title holders, and placed large bets as a result.

COACH'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's latest victory, their eighth in nine outings. "It might be for others on the outside looking in. It might change opinions. It might validate views that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the lads have provided us. Technically, we appear in a good place, and certainly physically we seem in a good place, so we hope it persists. Of course, it's not a position that the team is used to being in." Correct, the manager, it isn't. But the glorious, data-driven reality is that for the first time in ages, the Scottish game might genuinely have a championship battle that somebody besides Celtic or Rangers can win.