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JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the only surprising element of Hearts' victory over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which taken aback people seemed when reports of the result and its impact for the summit of the standings circulated. Although this 3-1 win at Tynecastle, which leaves the Edinburgh side top of the table and a significant margin ahead of their rivals, was seismic in scale, no one who has been tracking the fortunes of either squad this season will have been even remotely astonished by the result.

For each of the last four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish league between them, reducing fitba to almost a joke in the process. Nine games into the present season it has become clear that Hearts – who count Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – could be prepared to strike while the Glasgow duo iron is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

While much of the focus in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being suffered by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the circumstances at Ibrox has resulted in that Celtic's comparatively less severe decay has been allowed to fester unnoticed. The defending title winners have already dropped 10 points from nine league games this term under their manager. The Celtic manager has developed the thousand-yard stare of a man who can't stop checking his Google calendar to see how many time are left until his contract ends, and awoke this morning to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in all my time here," he informed reporters following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for any kind of a championship battle. "Therefore the drive is there to try and flip the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the dreadful start to the campaign being endured by Rangers, Rodgers and his players could normally be expected to get away with their own inability to start strongly, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has joined the mix. In spite of being obliged to operate with a budget that isn't so much a small portion of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have added the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL mix. As well as investing £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has provided the club exclusive use of his top secret analytics-based proprietary scouting player identification system.

In an Irish defender, a Greek talent and a Brazilian prospect it has enabled them to unearth hidden talents from an English lower-league side, the Slovak first division and the Norwegian second tier, among other lesser-known leagues, for the combined cost of a modest car. Seen 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 almost certainly noticed the oddsmakers had greatly underestimated his side's prospects of defeating the out-of-sorts title holders, and placed large bets accordingly.

COACH'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a statement win," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his side's latest victory, their eighth win in nine league matches. "Perhaps it is for others on the outside looking in. It could alter opinions. It might validate opinions that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the players have given us. Technically, we appear in a strong position, and definitely physically we seem in a excellent shape, so long may that continue. Naturally, it's not a position that the team is accustomed to being in." Correct, Derek, it is not. But the wonderful, analytics-backed reality is that for the first time in ages, the Scottish game might actually have a championship battle that a team other than Celtic or Rangers can claim.