Hearts left Celtic in a crumpled wreck and I see a glaring reason title challenge is something serious – Keith Jackson
This is more than a freak run of results and the Celtic win taught us exactly why
It's starting to feel as if Derek McInnes has been made for precisely this moment in time.
As if his entire managerial career may, in fact, have been nothing more than preparation for what is about to come next.
Because the game in this country may be witnessing the death of Del the Disruptor and the birth of something truly monumental in the making. We could be watching history being woven into the rich fabric of Scottish football.
One or two of us have been suggesting as much for a while now.
But, when the juggernaut McInnes has created at Hearts smashed into Celtic and left the champions in a crumpled, smoking wreck, so the realisation began to sink in up and down the land that this is real after all.
Hearts really are title contenders after all. As a matter of fact, they might soon be regarded as out and out favourites to go the whole way, which would be a remarkable achievement in itself regardless of how it all pans out further down the line.
This was a statement victory if ever there was one. Hearts came charging out of the starting blocks to grab Celtic by the collars of their shirts.
And even though captain Callum McGregor responded to this act of outrageous aggression by dragging his own side back up off the floor, not even he could hold it all together for long enough to make a meaningful difference to the end result.
McGregor was quite magnificent in the heat of that first half battle.
When his team mates were in danger of collapsing and going weak at the knees following the early concession of a horror story of an own goal, their skipper rose to the challenge all on his own.
For the next 20 minutes or so McGregor dominated the centre of the pitch and helped himself to a textbook equaliser. And at that point, it felt like the rerunning of an old and familiar story.
The one that ends almost inevitably, with another championship flag being unfurled in Glasgow’s east end.
But what followed was a shift in the tectonic plates of the Scottish game as the ground began to move under its feet.
Hearts didn’t just regain their composure and re-establish their dominance towards the end of the first half, they were visibly running Celtic ragged.
So when they struck twice in the space of a couple of second half minutes to take a 3-1 lead, the outcome of this Sunday lunchtime spectacular was never in any kind of doubt.
And that’s precisely why this feels like something a great deal more serious than just a freakish early season run of results.
It wasn’t a win secured by the seat of their pants. On the contrary, it was controlled aggression, it was measured game management and it was all too much for even McGregor at his most motivated to resist.
Craig Halkett and Stuart Findlay were immense at the back. Beni Baningme and Cammy Devlin were insatiable competitors in the middle of the pitch.
And Lawrence Shankland, Alexandros Kyziridis and Claudio Braga offered a consistent and fluid threat in the final third.
None of this is happening by accident. Hearts, with a helping hand from Brighton owner Tony Bloom, have been exceptionally shrewd in the manner with which they have got themselves into this position.
It didn’t require any of the data crunching boffins from Jamestrow Analytics to identify the appointment of McInnes as the key, driving component. It was all so blindingly obvious that there was no need at all to run it through the algorithms.
Funnily enough, they did it anyway and Bloom’s super computer was also convinced of the most likely outcome. That putting McInnes in charge would almost certainly result in Hearts winning a great deal more games of football than they are used to.
And now here they are. Eight points clear at the top of the table with the chance of extending it to 14 points - or perhaps even more than that -
given the way the fixtures fall over the course of the next fortnight or so.
In more normal times, such a lead probably still wouldn’t feel like enough to validate claims of a genuine title challenge.
In more normal times, Celtic would respond to such a setback with one almighty, earth shattering backlash.
But there is nothing normal about the current campaign. The champions are not just more vulnerable than they have been at any time since blowing their bid for ten in a row, they are actively conspiring against themselves to make a bad situation even worse.
The support has turned militant on its own board of directors. The board has been caught bitching behind the back of Brendan Rogers while sleeping at the wheel during the transfer window.
And some of the players Rodgers does have at his disposal don’t seem all that bothered about being here or not. The same can be asked of the manager now that he has entered into the final year of his contract without any indication that he intends to hang around any longer.
Then there are injuries to the A listers in Celtic’s squad with people like Jota, Alistair Johnston, Daizen Maeda, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Alistair Johnston - all of whom would have walked into yesterday’s starting XI had they not been fighting for space on the treatment table.
That’s another reason why McGregor was such a stand out yesterday.
Not only was he physically present and available for action but, more importantly, he played the game with the passion of a man whose heart and soul were on the line as well as his body.
But he is now a bit of an outlier in Celtic’s squad which has become weighed down with players who believe they should be some place better by now and others who are fortunate just to have made it this far.
Which is probably the major reason why something feels distinctly different about what McInnes is pulling together at Tynecastle this season and what Hearts might be capable of achieving before it’s over.
That Rangers have reduced themselves to nothing much more than an irrelevance in the conversation is another huge factor in this potential, unfolding fairytale.
So much so that when Danny Rohl’s side kicked off against Kilmarnock later yesterday afternoon the outcome of that match simply did not matter either way because the target at Ibrox right now is an outside shot at a third placed finish.
Ironically, that might have been the very aim McInnes had in mind for Hearts just a few months ago, at a time when he was settling into the job.
Those days are long gone. The limits to expectation have been removed also.
Hearts now have the chance to push hard at an open door and McInnes has his finger prints all over the handle.
