With Celtic looking less potent and Rangers in crisis, Hearts have hit top spot in the early stages of the Premiership season, but can they sustain it unlike those who have challenged early in previous campaigns? Graeme McGarry assesses how realistic it is that a team outside of Glasgow's big two could cause an almighty shock by splitting, or even topping, the Old Firm.
Whisper it, but are Scottish football’s playground bullies looking ripe for a bash on the nose? It seems those cowed by them for the best part of 40 years are indeed smelling blood.
First, though, some perspective.
Around this time last year, I took some heat from some disgruntled Aberdeen supporters for suggesting that their winning run at the start of the season was not only a little falsely inflated by the level of opposition they had faced in the League Cup group stages, but that it was very likely to soon fizzle out. If only the Dons had such problems now.
Here we are, in this early stage of the season, posing similar questions about Hearts. And at the risk of also dampening some chips down Gorgie way, you might not be surprised to read that I’m also being slightly cautious about the chances of the Jambos - or anyone else outside of Glasgow - mounting a serious challenge for the league title this time around.
It’s not that I like to be a doomsayer, or at all enjoy the duopoly (well, monopoly, as it has increasingly become) that has had a stranglehold on the top-flight title for over 40 years now. No matter your allegiances, the lack of variety in the winner’s enclosure cannot be a healthy state of affairs for any so-called competition.
But even with Celtic and Rangers in varying degrees of flux at the moment, and with some of the other teams like Hearts, Hibernian, St Mirren, Motherwell and Dundee United looking stronger this term, the chasm between the finances of these clubs and the big two remains so vast that even splitting the Old Firm over the course of a season remains a monumental task. All that being said…
Celtic are currently in a mess of their own making. A puzzlingly dire summer transfer window has left their team carrying less of a goal threat on the field and their fans apoplectic off it. There was a silent protest during the goalless draw with Hibs at Celtic Park at the weekend, their fourth stalemate already this season, as there will also be in the matches against Braga and Motherwell.
Read more:
- Stephen McGowan: Celtic now tough to watch as summer of dysfunction takes toll
- Andrew McKinlay exclusive: Tony Bloom, Hearts title ambition & Derek McInnes
- Rangers fans are fed up being the butt of the joke, Russell Martin has to go
As for Rangers, well, their own ridiculous state was probably best summed up by the sight of their fans deliriously celebrating the last-gasp winner over Livingston at the weekend for about three whole seconds before they too remembered they were actually beelin’, and immediately launched into a chorus of ‘Martin, Martin, get to f***’.
I’ve been watching Scottish football a long time, but hearing calls for the manager to be binned during a goal celebration for his own team may well be a first. If you didn’t know it already, that was proof positive that Russell Martin is a dead man walking, but with the new Rangers board digging their heels in, there is a good chance he will limp along for a while yet.
So, if the perfect storm for a rogue title challenge is to have both Glasgow giants in a period of regression and infighting while some of the other clubs seem to have their houses in order on and off the park, then we would appear to be slap bang in the eye of it.
There is no doubt that the level of Celtic and Rangers has come down this season, while levels have been raised elsewhere. The question is, just how much has that gap been bridged?
Hearts are sitting top of the league after six matches, two points clear of Celtic. They have the backing of Tony Bloom and his Jamestown Analytics statistical model, as well as the £10m he pumped into the club in the summer.
The bullish Bloom himself has stated that winning the league is the eventual aim, and he would be disappointed if they didn’t finish second this term, even if CEO Andrew McKinlay was doing a bit of expectation management this week in an exclusive interview with my colleague Stephen McGowan when he said: “Do I believe that we could win the league? It might not be this season, but yes, I do think we could win the league at some point.”
This opportunity may have come early in the Hearts revolution, but when you consider the state of play in Glasgow, you have to wonder if they will ever get a better one.
When Aberdeen were taking on and defeating all-comers at the start of last season, a quick squizz at the Dons squad left you with the feeling it was all a bit unsustainable, even if the scale of their drop-off was more dramatic than anyone may have anticipated.
You can’t say the same for Hearts, who have strength in depth in most positions, and who have, in Derek McInnes, a vastly experienced manager in the Scottish game.
That experience will see McInnes ca' canny on the chances of his side winning the Premiership or even finishing second, but even if he would never admit it, he must be looking at the competition and believing there is an opportunity to really achieve something special this term.
Hearts welcome Hibs to Tynecastle on Saturday evening for the first Edinburgh derby of the season, and with David Gray’s men steadying the ship with the draw at Celtic Park last week after their leaky defence had threatened to sink their own early season optimism, it is anyone’s game.
Celtic have a tricky fixture of their own, with Jens Berthel Askou’s eye-catching Motherwell side travelling to Glasgow with the aim to impose themselves and to go on the front foot against the champions, perhaps for the first time in decades, rather than looking to shut up shop and nab a goal on the counter or from a set piece.
As for Rangers, they follow up their scrambled victory over Livi with another tricky-looking away tie at Falkirk, though the presence of only 700-odd angry Bears instead of the 7000-odd who were in West Lothian may actually be a relief for their embattled manager and their petrified-looking players.
The point is this. While you may fancy that both Celtic and Rangers will win those matches, you might not be so keen to bet your shirt on it as you once were. There appears to be jeopardy in just about every game they play at the moment.
Do I really believe that Hearts, or anyone else but Celtic, could win the league? Probably not. Do I really believe that anyone but Rangers could finish second? Right now, that’s much more realistic.
Come January, if either of these questions is still a live issue, you would imagine that the sort of money the rest can only dream of will be thrown at tilting things back in the favour of the big two. But for now? Well, when a bully shows weakness, you have to exploit it. From a neutral perspective, it is refreshing to see these teams having a go at the big two.
For now, at least, however long it lasts, we seem to have a competition worthy of the name.
