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

HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the sole unexpected element of Hearts' triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which surprised people seemed when reports of the outcome and its impact for the summit of the standings circulated. Although this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which leaves the Edinburgh side leading of the table and a significant margin ahead of Celtic, was seismic in nature, no one who has been following the fortunes of either squad this campaign will have been in the least astonished by the final score.

Over the past 40 seasons, the Glasgow duopoly of the Old Firm have carved up the Scottish league between them, turning fitba to something of a punchline in the process. Several matches into the present campaign it has become clear that Hearts – who count Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – could be ready to make their move while the Old Firm iron is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

Although a lot of the focus in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being endured by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the situation at their stadium has resulted in that the title holders' slightly less terminal decay has been able to worsen unnoticed. The reigning champions have so far dropped a considerable number from their opening nine league games this season under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has developed the distant look of a individual who can't stop consulting his Google calendar to find out how many time are remaining until his contract ends, and woke up this day to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in all my time at the club," he told reporters following the defeat, after they had questioned his appetite for anything resembling a title fight. "Therefore the drive is there to try and flip the levels that we're at. It's absolutely fine, there is plenty of time."

NEW CHALLENGER

Considering the horrific beginning to the season being experienced by the other Glasgow side, Rodgers and his men could typically be anticipated to get away with their own inability to start strongly, but on this occasion an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the mix. Despite being forced to function with a budget that is not just a small portion of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have introduced the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership equation. As well as investing ten million pounds during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted the club exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven proprietary scouting player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to discover unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the combined cost of a modest car. Spotted at their home venue on Sunday wearing a club colours, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be seen celebrating each score with the gusto of a man who had likely noticed the bookies had greatly underestimated his team's prospects of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and filled his boots as a result.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired team manager Derek McInnes after his team's most recent success, their eighth in nine league matches. "Perhaps it is for those on the outside looking in. It might change opinions. It may confirm views that there's a tightrope. But let's not kid ourselves, we're really pleased with what the lads have provided us. Technically, we appear in a good place, and certainly physically we look in a good place, so long may that continue. Of course, this is not a situation that the team is accustomed to being in." Correct, the manager, it is not. But the wonderful, analytics-backed truth is that for the initial occasion in ages, the Scottish game might actually have a title race that somebody besides the traditional powers can win.