Of all the many theories regarding this season’s Premiership title race, the notion that any of the three contenders might win all of their remaining matches is perhaps the most fallacious.
It is an argument that has been advanced most often on behalf of Rangers and Celtic over recent weeks. In their efforts to catch Hearts, they would need to be flawless from now until the end of the campaign.
With six matches left to play, it still stands to reason that neither of the Old Firm teams are good enough to fulfil that remit. But, then again, neither are Hearts.
The belief that any of these three teams could win all six games, especially with the pressure cranking up each week, is fanciful in the extreme.
It was Hearts and Derek McInnes who blinked at the weekend, labouring to a 2-2 draw at Livingston on Sunday afternoon.
That allowed Rangers and Celtic to close the gap on the leaders. With the finish line now in sight, the fact that only three points covers the top three teams is an enthralling prospect.
Lawrence Shankland leads a strikeforce that could give Hearts an advantage in the title run-in
Kelechi Iheanacho scores a late winner for Celtic after coming off the bench at Dens Park
Ryan Naderi scored his first league goal for Rangers in their win against Dundee United at Ibrox
But what this past weekend confirmed is that only one thing can be known for sure; that these final few weeks of the season promise to be predictably unpredictable.
All three title rivals have now played 32 matches, yet only once so far this season have all three of them won on the same weekend.
It’s an incredible statistic, especially at this late juncture of the campaign, and one which is reflective of the most exciting season Scottish football has witnessed in a generation.
Hearts will have been kicking themselves as they travelled home from Livingston on Sunday. Not only in terms of dropping two points against the team who are bottom of the table, but also the manner of it all.
Having fallen behind in the early stages, they fought back to lead 2-1 thanks to goals from Lawrence Shankland and Claudio Braga.
All they had to do was just be professional and see the game out. At that point, it was all about game-management as much as anything else.
But a defensive lapse McInnes described as ‘inexplicable’, sparked by Craig Halkett failing to find Islam Chesnokov with a simple pass, saw them gift possession away.
In the blink of an eye, Livingston had broken forward in good numbers, with Lewis Smith eventually thumping the ball high into the net for 2-2.
A point was still enough to restore Hearts’ position at the top of the table, after Rangers had gone top with a 4-2 win over Dundee United on Saturday, but it clearly wasn’t the response McInnes had in mind.
Maybe it was the pressure beginning to tell. But that’s probably a little too simplistic. Especially when you look at the wider trend with Hearts right now.
In their last four away matches, McInnes’ side have taken only one point from a possible 12. Plainly, that is not the sort of form that wins a league title.
Three of those four matches have come against Livingston, Kilmarnock and St Mirren, the league’s bottom three teams at present.
Hearts are unbeaten all season at Tynecastle in the league. But this patchy run of form away from home has opened the door to Rangers and Celtic.
But all is not lost. There is no reason to panic. As McInnes rightly pointed out, his team are still top of the table with six games to play.
If you had offered that to anyone connected with Hearts back at the start of the season, they would have bitten your hand off.
Ultimately, they are still the masters of their own destiny. But, above and beyond anything else, it is the restoration of the Shankland and Braga double act up front which still gives Hearts the edge.
The game at Livingston on Sunday was the first time that Shankland and Braga had started a league match together in almost three months, going back to a 2-0 home win over St Mirren on January 14.
It was almost like they had never been away from each other. The way they clicked and connected was almost instantaneous.
This is the beauty of what Shankland brings to Hearts now that he is fit again. It is not only about his individual goal contribution. He also makes others around him better as well.
Braga would be chief among them. Alexandros Kyziridis also played all of his best football in the first half of the season prior to Shankland’s injury.
After they both found the net on Sunday, Shankland and Braga have 25 league goals between them so far this season. That’s an impressive number given that the Scotland striker was out for two months.
Compare this to Celtic’s strikers. Daizen Maeda has seven league goals, Kelechi Iheanacho has three, and Tomas Cvancara has two. That’s 12 in total. Benjamin Nygren is their top scorer with 15 from midfield.
At Rangers, Youssef Chermiti is the top scorer with nine goals in the league, eight of which have come in matches against Hearts and Celtic.
Bojan Miovski has five, whilst Ryan Naderi finally got off the mark by scoring in the win over Dundee United at the weekend. That’s 15 league goals in total from their strikers.
The numbers produced by Shankland and Braga blow both of these totals out the water. It is this greater level of firepower that should still give Hearts confidence.
Ultimately, they have not one but two strikers who would walk into the Rangers and Celtic teams. You can’t overstate just how important that attacking threat will be in these tight games in the run-in.
In fairness, Rangers also look like they have found something at the top end of the pitch. Danny Rohl’s side have scored eight goals in their last two league games.
A trip to face in-form Falkirk next Sunday will certainly be a stiff test of their credentials prior to heading into the post-split fixtures.
But Celtic’s attack still doesn’t convince. In their game against Dundee at Dens Park on Sunday, they could have been out of sight by half-time if they had even a semi-competent striker.
They didn’t. Instead, they had Cvancara. There were times when he looked like a competition winner. He missed two great chances in the first half, one of which hit the post.
There was also another great chance squandered shortly after half-time when a clumsy touch allowed Dundee keeper Jon McCracken to get out and narrow the angle.
It was left to Iheanacho to come off the bench and score the winner with little more than 10 minutes to play.
But, in his post-match media conference, O’Neill spoke about the fact he was blessed with an abundance of top-class strikers during his first spell at the club.
None of the current crop would get near the likes of a Henrik Larsson, a Chris Sutton, or a John Hartson. But O’Neill can only play with the hand he’s been dealt.
Celtic are still in this title race. God knows how, but they are still alive. Suggestions of any fatal blows being suffered remain premature.
But it’s Hearts who still hold all the aces. They have the best two strikers in the league and they still lead the way by a point.
It was a disappointing weekend, for sure, but it was no disaster.
