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JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the only surprising element of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over Celtic in the Scottish top flight was just how taken aback people seemed when news of the result and its impact for the top of the standings emerged. While this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which puts the Jambos leading of the league and eight points ahead of their rivals, was seismic in scale, no one who has been tracking the progress of both squad this season will have been in the least shocked by the result.

Over the last 40 seasons, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of the Old Firm have carved up the Scottish football between them, reducing the beautiful game to something of a punchline in the meantime. Several matches into the current season it has become apparent that Heart of Midlothian – who count celebrated snooker player, Sir Chris Hoy and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – could be prepared to strike while the Old Firm influence is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

Although a lot of the focus in Scotland has been on the absolute bin-fire being suffered by the Ibrox club, the complete turmoil of the circumstances at their stadium has meant that Celtic's comparatively less severe decline has been able to fester unnoticed. The defending title winners have already lost a considerable number from their opening nine fixtures this season under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has acquired the distant look of a man who can't stop consulting his schedule to see how many time are left until his deal ends, and woke up this day to learn the answer is over two hundred.

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

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the dreadful start to the campaign being endured by the other Glasgow side, Rodgers and his men could typically be expected to escape scrutiny for their own inability to start strongly, but this year an capital city challenger has joined the fray. Despite being forced to function with a war-chest that is not just a small portion of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have added the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership equation. As well as putting in £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has granted Hearts exclusive use of his highly confidential analytics-based Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to discover unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other lesser-known leagues, for the total price of a mid-range family saloon. Spotted at Tynecastle on matchday wearing a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be observed cheering each goal with the enthusiasm of a man who had likely noticed the oddsmakers had massively underestimated his team's chances of defeating the struggling champions, and placed large bets accordingly.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"In my opinion it's a statement win," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his side's most recent success, their eighth in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for others on the periphery. It could alter opinions. It might validate views that there's a fine line. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the players have given us. In terms of skill, we appear in a good place, and definitely physically we seem in a excellent shape, so long may that continue. Of course, it's not a position that the team is accustomed to being in." Correct, Derek, it isn't. But the glorious, analytics-backed reality is that for the initial occasion in many years, Scottish football might actually have a championship battle that somebody other than the traditional powers can win.