The Reasons Hearts' Historic Championship Challenge Shouldn't Come as a Surprise.

HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the only surprising element of Hearts' triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which taken aback observers appeared when reports of the result and its consequences for the top of the standings emerged. While this 3-1 win at their home ground, which leaves the Jambos top of the table and eight points ahead of Celtic, was seismic in scale, no one who has been tracking the progress of either squad this campaign will have been in the least astonished by the result.

Over the last 40 seasons, the Glasgow duopoly of the Old Firm have divided the Scottish league between them, reducing fitba to almost a punchline in the process. Several matches into the present season it has become clear that Heart of Midlothian – who number celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and renowned actor among their celebrity fans – might just be ready to make their move while the Old Firm influence is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' SLUMP

While much of the attention in Scotland has been on the absolute bin-fire being endured by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the situation at Ibrox has resulted in that Celtic's comparatively less severe decline has been able to worsen below the radar. The reigning champions have so far lost 10 points from nine league games this term under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has developed the distant look of a man who constantly consulting his Google calendar to see how many time are left until his deal ends, and awoke this morning to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure here," he told the media following the loss, after they had questioned his appetite for any kind of a championship battle. "So the motivation is there to attempt to reverse the standards that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the dreadful beginning to the campaign being experienced by Rangers, Rodgers and his men could typically be expected to get away with their own failure to roar out of the traps, but this year an capital city challenger has entered the mix. Despite being obliged to operate with a budget that isn't so much a small portion of their rivals' as a minuscule amount in comparison, the Tynecastle outfit have introduced the investment and expertise of a renowned businessman to the Scottish Premiership equation. In addition to investing £10m during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has provided the club exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, Alexandros Kyziridis and a Brazilian prospect it has enabled them to unearth hidden talents from Walsall, the Slovak first division and the Norway's second division, among other lesser-known leagues, for the total price of a modest car. Spotted at Tynecastle on Sunday wearing a club colours, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be observed cheering each goal with the enthusiasm of a person who had almost certainly noticed the bookies had massively underestimated his team's prospects of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and filled his boots accordingly.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said bearded Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's most recent victory, their eighth win in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for others on the outside looking in. It might change perceptions. It might validate views that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the lads have given us. In terms of skill, we look in a good place, and definitely physically we seem in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Naturally, it's not a position that the team is used to being in." Correct, Derek, it is not. But the glorious, data-driven truth is that for the initial occasion in many years, Scottish football might genuinely have a championship battle that a team besides the traditional powers can claim.