17 hours ago
5
Four more goals, three more points and now nine clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership - perhaps Hearts chief executive Andrew McKinlay was right when he blithely said "we will win the league" before Dundee's visit.
He did qualify that claim by stating it might not be this season - rather one further in the future - but, with every game that goes by, the Tynecastle side are enhancing their credentials to break the Old Firm's title duopoly.
Head coach Derek McInnes was more reserved, simply stating that completing a quarter of the league season in such a healthy position was "a good reference point".
Hearts were fortunate to escape Paisley with a point on Wednesday, a result which allowed Celtic to narrow the gap to six.
But his side took advantage of the reigning champions being on League Cup duty this weekend to extend their lead with a 4-0 win over Dundee.
And McInnes admitted: "We said the point at St Mirren would be a brilliant and important point if we won today - and that's the way it has been.
"A few weeks ago, we set a challenge to players, 'can we be above Celtic before we play them?'. And then 'can we be top of the league after the first round of fixtures?'.
"We've boxed off that little section now and we need to go again for the start of the next round."
Hearts' statistics in those first 11 games are impressive.
With 29 points, McInnes' side are one win away from equalling the tally they achieved after 12 games under George Burley at the start of the 2005-06 campaign - and this time they do not have a megalomaniac owner poised to sack the manager.
Hearts are undefeated in their last 15 Premiership games - their longest unbeaten streak for more than 10 years - and the division's only unbeaten side.
They have scored at least once in all 15 of those games - also their best run a decade - and no side has prevented them from scoring.
In Lawrence Shankland, they have a striker reborn. The Scotland international's opener against Dundee - his third in as many games - took him to the top of the Premiership charts with seven. His 10 overall has already surpassed last season's tally.
At the back, they have now amassed six league clean sheets - as many as any other side - with Dundee failing to fashion a single attempt on target in a game for the first time since facing Hearts in December.
Hearts also made 610 passes on Saturday, their highest total in a league game this term, with midfielder Cammy Devlin attempting 109 - the highest total by a player in the team this term.
Everything sounds like it is moving in the right direction, but McInnes insisted the squad is "getting stronger" and "we feel there is a bit more in us".
"We've got good wide players, we've got midfielders who control the game, and the bedrock for a lot of our results has been the clean sheets," he added.
"Trying to get that balance is not always easy, but we seem to be finding it."
McInnes admitted "we took a bit of a risk" by dropping new cult-hero forward Claudio Braga and in-form defenders Craig Halkett and Stephen Kingsley with injury niggles.
However, the fact Braga's replacement, Pierre Landry Kabore, repaid the managers' faith with his first two Hearts goals was another indication of the strength of a squad bolstered by their summer tie-in with Tony Bloom and his Jamestown Analytics company.
Burkina Faso forward Kabore was unearthed from Estonian club Narva Trans and midfielder Tomas Bent Magnusson, scorer of the fourth against Dundee, from Valur in Iceland.
No wonder McKinlay was so bullish when talking to BBC 5 Live before kick-off.
"It's dreamland and we're enjoying it," said the chief executive. "Scottish football gets criticised for having the two big teams dominating, and in the last decade maybe just one team dominating.
"It's brilliant for Scottish football, but it's brilliant for Hearts. This time last year, we were bottom of the league and here we are at the top, so let's make the most of it."
Celtic have a game in hand and multi-trophy winning Martin O'Neill back in interim charge. Rangers, 14 points adrift in fourth place, will hope for a revival too under new head coach Danny Rohl.
However, McKinlay takes heart from Bloom's influence at Brighton and Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgium.
"We're confident we're not just here for a short period and we can keep it going," he added. "Tony has brought a great deal of belief, when we look at how the analytics has been successful at other clubs.
"We genuinely believe that we've got a great opportunity. Now, I'm not saying we're going to win the league this year, but if we don't, this is not our one and only chance.
"We've got something really good going here and we believe we'll get better and better as the seasons go on.
"USG were almost relegated from the second tier and, within seven years, won the [Belgian] league and are now playing in the Champions League, so we're confident that at some point we will have Champions League music playing here.
"We will win the league, but whether it's this season or not, I don't know."
