Why Hearts' Landmark Title Tilt Isn't as a Shock.
HEARTS ON FIRE
Maybe the sole unexpected aspect of Hearts' triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which surprised people appeared when news of the outcome and its consequences for the summit of the standings circulated. Although this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which leaves the Jambos leading of the league and a significant margin clear of Celtic, was seismic in nature, no one who has been tracking the fortunes of both team this season will have been even remotely astonished by the final score.
For each of the past 40 seasons, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish football between them, reducing the beautiful game to almost a joke in the process. Several matches into the current season it has become apparent that Hearts – who count celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – might just be ready to strike while the Glasgow duo iron is freezing cold.
CELTIC'S SLUMP
Although much of the attention in Scotland has been on the absolute bin-fire being suffered by the Ibrox club, the complete turmoil of the circumstances at Ibrox has resulted in that the title holders' comparatively less severe decay has been allowed to fester unnoticed. The defending title winners have so far lost a considerable number from their opening nine league games this season under their manager. The team's boss has developed the thousand-yard stare of a man who constantly checking his Google calendar to find out how many days are left until his contract ends, and woke up this morning to discover the answer is over two hundred.
"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure at the club," he informed reporters following the loss, after they had questioned his desire for anything resembling a title fight. "So the motivation is present to attempt to reverse the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."
EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR
Given the dreadful beginning to the season being experienced by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his players could typically be anticipated to get away with their own inability to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the mix. Despite being forced to function with a war-chest that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have added the money and expertise of a renowned businessman to the SPL mix. In addition to investing ten million pounds during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has granted the club exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.
In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to discover hidden talents from Walsall, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the total price of a mid-range family saloon. Spotted at their home venue on matchday sporting a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be observed celebrating each score with the enthusiasm of a person who had almost certainly realized the oddsmakers had greatly underestimated his team's prospects of defeating the out-of-sorts title holders, and placed large bets as a result.
COACH'S RESPONSE
"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said bearded Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his team's most recent success, their eighth win in nine league matches. "It might be for those on the periphery. It might change perceptions. It might validate opinions that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the players have provided us. Technically, we look in a good place, 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 accustomed to being in." No, the manager, it is not. But the wonderful, data-driven truth is that for the initial occasion in many years, the Scottish game might genuinely have a championship battle that a team besides Celtic or Rangers can claim.
