Why Heart of Midlothian's Historic Championship Challenge Isn't as a Surprise.

HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the only surprising aspect of Hearts' victory over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which taken aback people seemed when reports of the outcome and its consequences for the summit of the table circulated. While this 3-1 win at Tynecastle, which leaves the Edinburgh side leading of the table and eight points clear of their rivals, was seismic in scale, no one who has been tracking the progress of both team this campaign will have been even remotely shocked by the final score.

For each of the past four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of the Old Firm have divided the Scottish league between them, reducing fitba to something of a punchline in the meantime. Nine games into the present season it has become apparent that Hearts – who number celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – could be prepared to strike while the Glasgow duo iron is freezing cold.

THE CHAMPIONS' SLUMP

Although much of the attention in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being suffered by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the circumstances at their stadium has meant that Celtic's slightly less terminal decay has been allowed to fester unnoticed. The defending title winners have so far lost a considerable number from nine league games this term under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has developed the thousand-yard stare of a individual who can't stop consulting his schedule to find out how many days are left until his deal expires, and woke up this day to learn the number is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in all my time at the club," he told the media following the loss, after they had doubted his appetite for any kind of a championship battle. "Therefore the drive is there to attempt to reverse the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

NEW CHALLENGER

Considering the horrific beginning to the campaign being endured by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be anticipated to escape scrutiny for their own failure to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has entered the mix. Despite being obliged to operate with a war-chest that isn't so much a small portion of their rivals' as a minuscule amount in comparison, Hearts have added the money and expertise of Tony Bloom to the SPL equation. As well as putting in £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has granted Hearts exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and a Brazilian prospect it has enabled them to discover hidden talents from an English lower-league side, the Slovakian top flight and the Norway's second division, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the total price of a modest car. Seen at Tynecastle on Sunday wearing a Hearts scarf, the notoriously astute sports betting expert could be seen celebrating each goal with the enthusiasm of a person who had almost certainly noticed the bookies had massively underestimated his team's chances of beating the out-of-sorts title holders, and filled his boots as a result.

COACH'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired team manager Derek McInnes after his team's latest victory, their eighth in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for those on the periphery. It might change perceptions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the players have given us. Technically, we look in a strong position, and definitely in fitness we look in a good place, so we hope it persists. Naturally, this is not a situation that the team is used to being in." No, Derek, it is not. But the wonderful, analytics-backed reality is that for the first time in many years, the Scottish game might actually have a title race that a team other than Celtic or Rangers can win.