If you were to forget that Hearts – or any other non-Old Firm club – are not supposed to win the league, you can only conclude that McInnes’ side are the real deal and that Rodgers’ huff and puff champions are in real trouble.
They haven’t looked this good since George Burley was in charge two decades ago, that particular Hearts challenge getting snuffed out not by the Old Firm but by the folly of the club’s owner at the time, Vlad Romanov.
Some might say it’s unwise for Hearts folk to dream because it’s too early in the campaign. But why not? Isn’t football about dreaming of what might be?
They’ve known plenty of misery in these parts in recent times. Telling a Jambo to calm down as their team strides into an eight-point lead at the top of the table is to be the worst kind of killjoy.
They have not won the league since 1960. Long road ahead. Danger ahoy, no doubt. Pressure and injury and bumps on the way, but these are exhilarating times.
And what might, just might, make it sustainable – is that the infrastructure of the club is everything that Celtic’s and Rangers’ is not.
It’s solid. It’s focused. It’s underpinned by the money and wisdom of Tony Bloom, the Brighton chairman, who has invested £10m for a minority stake in the club.
It’s underpinned, also, by the work of Jamestown Analytics and their ability to find the likes of Kyziridis, an uncapped Greek who was playing in Slovakia, and Braga, who was operating in the second tier of Norwegian football.
The club is now aligned on and off the pitch after many years of being a troubled place. Celtic and Rangers wouldn’t mind such stability.
People entrenched in Scottish football see things as they have always been and can never see them changing. Perhaps that view will still hold true at the end of the season. Perhaps. The fact there is a considerable doubt is exciting enough for now.
People like Bloom, watching here from the stand, are a breath of fresh air. He’s already said that Hearts can win the league in a decade. That kind of chat from an underdog is usually laughed off in Scotland. Usually.
Tynecastle was alive on Sunday. Another test passed with flying colours. Glorious maroon, of course.
