Every season in Scotland follows the same script. A team other than Celtic strings together a few good results early on and the country loses its head. September becomes prophecy. October becomes destiny.
By November we’re being asked if the O** F*** is about to be ‘split’. It’s bitterness dressed up as analysis, and it happens because too many people either don’t understand how leagues are won or pretend not to.
Looking at a table before winter and celebrating it like it proves something is odd for an adult. It only tells you who has banked points so far. A league is thirty eight games. Not four, not six. Not the ones you emotionally prioritise because you hate Celtic more than you value consistency.
That’s where Hearts come in this season. Credit where it’s due. Any team that strings together a sustained run in this league deserves respect. Wins aren’t flukes. Beating Celtic twice and taking six points off the Ibrox Tribute Act isn’t luck. That happened. It counts.
Even the “canter” comment shouted by a Hearts caller on Clyde SSB last week shows how some people distort reality. Pretending otherwise is as dishonest as taking that caller seriously
HEARTS HIGHS AND LOWS
But here’s the part that rarely gets examined. Hearts beat Celtic twice. They beat the Tribute Act home and away. That should be season defining. That should be the platform for something historic. And yet it changed nothing of substance. Not a single decisive shift in the title picture.
That alone should raise alarm bells for anyone seriously talking about a title race.
Why? Because they didn’t win the games they had to win. St Mirren. Motherwell. The unglamorous fixtures where champions make their money. Hearts dropped points there, exposing the false economy of their run.
If they’d taken care of those games, before the weekend, they’d be twelve points clear if all else had stayed the same. Instead, they were six ahead with Celtic holding a game in hand. That’s not dominance. That’s fragility, that’s the results expected of them most seasons, but not this season. Not for the title kings in all but name.
Then came the Hibs game. An early kick off. A chance to stretch the gap. Three goals down in no time. Two late strikes only highlighted the panic. Celtic won comfortably later, and suddenly it was three points with a game in hand. All that noise evaporates in ninety minutes. That’s how thin the margins really are.
LOST IN HYSTERIA?
Perspective is what gets lost in all this hysteria. Celtic have been in turmoil by their own standards. Boardroom chaos. Fans targeted Summer dysfunction. Inconsistency on the pitch. Manager resigned.
And still, their floor has kept them level with Hearts’ ceiling. I am not being arrogant. It’s history, data, and lived reality. Even when Celtic aren’t right, they’re relentless in a way no one else in this league can sustain.
Look beyond this season. Last year, Hearts hovered near the bottom while Aberdeen were lauded as potential champions after an early run.
We’ve seen this film before. Analytics buzzwords, new money narratives, managerial genius myths don’t change the basic truth. You don’t go from relegation anxiety to champions without becoming fundamentally different. Hearts aren’t there yet.
The media don’t help. “Anyone but Celtic” isn’t a conspiracy. It’s a reflex. You could hear it at the weekend with that Royalist Ian Crocker. Dejection when Hearts went behind. Hope when they pulled two back. Far from neutral observation. It’s yearning. And too many Celtic fans, rattled by short term form, feed straight into it.
GORGIE NOISE
Beating Celtic matters. Of course it does. But leagues aren’t won by emotional fixtures. They’re won by turning up every week, grinding through plastic pitches, not dropping points when nobody’s watching.
Celtic are the only club in Scotland capable of sustaining a relentless season long winning run.
That’s not disrespect. It’s simply the truth of the last decade and beyond.
This isn’t dismissing Hearts’ form. It’s putting it where it belongs. Commendable. Impressive in spells. Ultimately insufficient. Until thirty eight games say otherwise, the rest is noise.
And noise doesn’t win leagues.
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1 Comment
by Charlienic
“Noise doesn’t win leagues”, you’re so right, it’s usually in the fitba free summer that hun noise is loudest but anyone but Celtic has been a fact for decades, it’s a league campaign not a short sprint