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JAMBOS BLAZING

Maybe the sole unexpected element of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which taken aback observers seemed when news of the outcome and its impact for the summit of the table circulated. While this 3-1 win at their home ground, which leaves the Edinburgh side leading of the league and eight points clear of Celtic, was seismic in nature, nobody who has been tracking the fortunes of both squad this season will have been in the least shocked by the final score.

Over the last 40 seasons, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish league between them, reducing fitba to something of a joke in the process. Several matches into the present campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who number celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – might just be ready to make their move while the Old Firm iron is freezing cold.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

While a lot of the focus in Scotland has been on the absolute bin-fire being suffered by the Ibrox club, the full-spectrum nightmare of the situation at their stadium has meant that the title holders' slightly less terminal decay has been able to fester unnoticed. 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 man who can't stop checking his Google calendar to find out how many time are remaining until his contract expires, and awoke this day to learn the answer is 246.

"I've never worked harder in all my time here," he told the media following the defeat, after they had questioned his desire for anything resembling a title fight. "So the motivation is there to try and reverse the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the horrific beginning to the campaign being experienced by Rangers, Rodgers and his men could normally be expected to get away with their own failure to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the mix. Despite being forced to operate with a budget that is not just a small portion of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have added the investment and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL mix. As well as investing ten million pounds during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has granted the club exclusive use of his highly confidential analytics-based proprietary scouting recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to unearth hidden talents from Walsall, the Slovak first division and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the combined cost of a mid-range family saloon. Spotted at Tynecastle on Sunday wearing a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be observed cheering each goal with the enthusiasm of a person who had almost certainly realized the bookies had massively underestimated his team's prospects of defeating the struggling champions, and placed large bets as a result.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said bearded team manager Derek McInnes after his team's most recent victory, their eighth in nine league matches. "It might be for others on the outside looking in. It could alter perceptions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the players have provided us. In terms of skill, we appear in a good place, and certainly physically we seem in a good place, so we hope it persists. Naturally, it's not a position that the team is used to being in." No, Derek, it is not. But the glorious, analytics-backed reality is that for the first time in many years, Scottish football might genuinely have a championship battle that somebody other than Celtic or Rangers can win.