🔗 Share this article The Reasons Hearts' Historic Championship Challenge Shouldn't Come as a Surprise. HEARTS ON FIRE Perhaps the sole unexpected element of Hearts' victory over Celtic in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which taken aback people appeared when news of the result and its consequences for the top of the standings emerged. While this 3-1 win at Tynecastle, which leaves the Jambos leading of the league and eight points ahead of Celtic, was seismic in nature, no one who has been tracking the fortunes of either team this campaign will have been even remotely shocked by the result. Over the last four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of the Old Firm have carved up the Scottish league between them, reducing fitba to something of a punchline in the meantime. Several matches into the current 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 make their move while the Old Firm iron is at its weakest. CELTIC'S SLUMP While a lot of the focus in Scotland has been on the absolute bin-fire being suffered by Rangers, 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 so far lost 10 points from nine fixtures this term under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has acquired the distant look of a man who constantly checking his Google calendar to find out how many time are remaining until his deal expires, and woke up this day to discover the number is over two hundred. "No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure here," he informed the media following the loss, after they had doubted his appetite for any kind of a title fight. "Therefore the drive is present to attempt to flip 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 experienced by the other Glasgow side, Rodgers and his men could normally be expected to get away with their own inability to roar out of the traps, but this year an capital city challenger has entered the fray. In spite of being forced to function with a budget that is not just a small portion of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have added the money and expertise of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership mix. In addition to putting in £10m during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has provided the club exclusive use of his top secret data-driven proprietary scouting recruitment tool. In an Irish defender, a Greek talent and a Brazilian prospect it has enabled them to discover unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovak first division and the Norwegian second tier, among other lesser-known leagues, for the total price of a mid-range family saloon. Seen at their home venue on Sunday sporting a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be seen celebrating each goal with the gusto of a person who had likely noticed the bookies had greatly underestimated his side's prospects of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and filled his boots accordingly. COACH'S RESPONSE "In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired team manager Derek McInnes after his side's most recent victory, their eighth in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for others on the periphery. It could alter opinions. It might validate views that there's a fine line. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the players have provided us. In terms of skill, we look in a strong position, and certainly in fitness we seem in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Of course, this is not a situation that the team is used to being in." No, the manager, it isn't. But the glorious, analytics-backed reality is that for the initial occasion in ages, the Scottish game might actually have a championship battle that somebody besides the traditional powers can claim.