Hearts Game: McInnes Leads Hearts Toward Title in 2 Games
Hearts game pressure is now real: Derek McInnes’ side are two games from bringing the Scottish title to Edinburgh after staying top all season. A win of that size would end a 66-year wait and put Hearts in position to become the first non-Old Firm champion since Aberdeen in 1985.
McInnes and Hearts
Hearts set the pace early by winning eight of their opening nine league fixtures and going top of the Scottish Premiership. They have not given up that lead since.
McInnes, 54, has managed Aberdeen, Kilmarnock and St Johnstone, and his team’s position is built on a season that has held together from the first weeks of the campaign. Tony Bloom said Hearts could be "challenging for the Scottish title this season" in his first TV interview as the club’s minority owner, and the club’s rise has come with a recruitment model transformed by Jamestown Analytics.
The Old Firm race
The Scottish top division has 12 teams and splits into two groups of six for the final five matches, which gives the title race a late-season squeeze that can still settle things quickly. Hearts’ run has made that format matter at the top rather than just in the middle of the table.
Celtic’s recent grip on the league explains why Hearts’ position stands out. Celtic have failed to win the Scottish Premiership only once in the last 13 seasons, and the league’s four Old Firm derbies each year have usually shaped the title picture long before the split arrives.
Aberdeen’s 1985 marker
A Hearts title would do more than finish a long drought. It would make them the first non-Old Firm team to win the Scottish title since Sir Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen in 1985, and that is the line that gives this run its weight.
Hearts have also built the squad in an unusual way, recruiting players from the Norwegian second tier and the Slovakian top division. That mix has pushed them into a position the club has not reached in 66 years, with two games now separating them from a finish that would change the shape of the Scottish title race.
