Why Heart of Midlothian's Landmark Championship Challenge Shouldn't Come as a Surprise.

HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the only unexpected element of Hearts' triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which taken aback observers appeared when reports of the result and its consequences for the summit of the standings circulated. Although this 3-1 win at their home ground, which leaves the Edinburgh side top of the league and eight points ahead of Celtic, was earth-shattering in scale, no one who has been tracking the progress of either team this season will have been even remotely astonished by the result.

For each of the past four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish league between them, reducing the beautiful game to something of a punchline in the process. Nine games into the current campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – could be prepared to make their move while the Glasgow duo influence is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

Although much of the focus in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being endured by the Ibrox club, the full-spectrum nightmare of the situation at their stadium has meant that Celtic's slightly less terminal decay has been allowed to worsen below the radar. The reigning champions have already lost 10 points from their opening nine fixtures this season under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has developed the thousand-yard stare of a man who can't stop checking his schedule to see how many days are remaining until his deal expires, and awoke this morning to learn the answer is 246.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure here," he told the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for anything resembling a championship battle. "So the motivation is there to try and reverse the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

NEW CHALLENGER

Given the horrific beginning to the campaign being experienced by the other Glasgow side, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be expected to escape scrutiny for their own failure to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has entered the fray. In spite of being forced to function with a budget that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a minuscule amount in comparison, Hearts have added the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership mix. As well as putting in ten million pounds during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has provided the club sole use of his top secret data-driven proprietary scouting recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to discover unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovak first division and the Norway's second division, among other lesser-known leagues, for the combined cost of a mid-range family saloon. Spotted at Tynecastle on matchday wearing a Hearts scarf, the notoriously astute professional gambler could be observed cheering each score with the gusto of a man who had likely realized the oddsmakers had greatly misjudged his team's chances of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and placed large bets accordingly.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his team's most recent victory, their eighth in nine league matches. "Perhaps it is for others on the outside looking in. It might change opinions. It might validate views that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the lads have given us. Technically, we look in a strong position, and certainly in fitness we look in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Naturally, it's not a position that the team is used to being in." No, Derek, it isn't. But the glorious, data-driven reality is that for the first time in ages, the Scottish game might actually have a title race that somebody other than Celtic or Rangers can claim.