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JAMBOS BLAZING

Maybe the only surprising aspect of Heart of Midlothian's victory over Celtic in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which surprised observers seemed when reports of the outcome and its impact for the summit of the table emerged. Although this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which leaves the Edinburgh side top of the table and eight points ahead of Celtic, was seismic in scale, nobody who has been tracking the fortunes of both team this season will have been even remotely shocked by the result.

For each of the last four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish league between them, reducing fitba to something of a joke in the meantime. Several matches into the present season it has become clear that Hearts – who number Stephen Hendry, Sir Chris Hoy and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – might just be prepared to strike while the Glasgow duo iron is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

Although much of the attention in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being endured by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the situation at their stadium has resulted in that Celtic's slightly less terminal decay has been allowed to fester unnoticed. The defending title winners have so far lost 10 points from their opening nine league games this term under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has developed the thousand-yard stare of a individual who constantly checking his schedule to find out how many time are remaining until his deal ends, and woke up this day to discover the answer is 246.

"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure here," he told reporters following the loss, after they had questioned his desire for any kind of a championship battle. "Therefore the drive is present to attempt to flip the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the horrific beginning to the season being endured by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be expected to escape scrutiny for their own failure to start strongly, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the fray. Despite being obliged to function with a budget that isn't so much a tiny fraction of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have introduced the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL equation. As well as putting in ten million pounds during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted Hearts exclusive use of his top secret data-driven Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to unearth 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. Seen at Tynecastle on Sunday wearing a club colours, the notoriously astute professional gambler could be seen celebrating each goal with the enthusiasm of a person who had almost certainly noticed the oddsmakers had greatly misjudged his team's chances of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and filled his boots accordingly.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said bearded team manager the head coach after his team's most recent success, their eighth in nine league matches. "Perhaps it is for others on the periphery. It could alter perceptions. It may confirm opinions that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the players have given us. In terms of skill, we appear in a strong position, and definitely physically we seem in a good place, so we hope it persists. Of course, it's not a position that this club is accustomed to being in." No, the manager, it isn't. But the wonderful, data-driven truth is that for the initial occasion in ages, Scottish football might actually have a championship battle that a team other than the traditional powers can claim.