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JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the sole unexpected aspect of Hearts' victory over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish Premiership was just how taken aback people seemed when news of the result and its impact for the top of the standings circulated. Although this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which puts the Jambos top of the league and eight points clear of Celtic, was seismic in nature, nobody who has been tracking the progress of either team this campaign will have been in the least shocked by the final score.

For each of the last four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish football between them, turning fitba to almost a punchline in the meantime. Several matches into the current campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who count Stephen Hendry, Sir Chris Hoy and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – could be prepared to strike while the Old Firm iron is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S SLUMP

Although a lot of the focus in the Scottish game 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 the title holders' comparatively less severe decay has been able to fester below the radar. The reigning champions have already dropped a considerable number from their opening nine league games this season under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has acquired the distant look of a individual who can't stop consulting his Google calendar to see how many time are left until his deal ends, and awoke this morning to discover the answer is 246.

"I've never worked harder in all my time at the club," he told reporters following the defeat, after they had questioned his desire for anything resembling 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 beginning to the campaign being experienced by the other Glasgow side, Rodgers and his men could typically be expected to get away with their own failure to start strongly, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the mix. Despite being obliged to operate with a war-chest that isn't so much a small portion of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have introduced the investment and expertise of a renowned businessman to the Scottish Premiership mix. As well as putting in £10m during the summer, the Brighton owner has granted Hearts exclusive use of his top secret data-driven Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to discover hidden talents from an English lower-league side, the Slovak first division and the Norway's second division, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the combined cost of a modest car. Spotted at Tynecastle on matchday wearing a club colours, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be seen cheering each score with the gusto of a person who had almost certainly noticed the bookies had greatly underestimated his team's prospects of beating the struggling champions, and placed large bets accordingly.

COACH'S REACTION

"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 in nine outings. "It might be for those on the periphery. It could alter perceptions. It might validate opinions that there's a fine line. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the players have provided us. Technically, we appear in a good place, and definitely physically we look in a good place, so we hope it persists. Naturally, it's not a position that the team is accustomed to being in." Correct, the manager, it is not. But the wonderful, data-driven reality is that for the first time in ages, Scottish football might actually have a title race that a team besides the traditional powers can win.