Time for Celtic to sit up and take notice of the threat coming from the capital – Wouter Vrancken is starting to build some serious momentum with his Hearts side

On Friday, I wrote an article about the Ibrox side outspending us in the summer window.

Right at the end of it, I threw in a line about what Wouter Vrancken is building at Hearts, and said I’d save that story for later in the season.

Well, later in the season has arrived a wee bit quicker than I expected.

Because on Saturday, Hearts made it four league wins on the bounce.

And they did it the hard way.

Sabah Kerjota’s winner against Dundee didn’t arrive until the 96th minute.

Ninety-sixth.

That is a team that keeps going until the bitter end, and we all know what that looks like, because we used to be that team ourselves.

Hearts have not been beaten in a league game at Tynecastle since April 2025.

Read that one again.

Saturday was their 10th consecutive home league win.

In this calendar year, they have won 12 of their 13 home league fixtures.

And all of this after a summer that was written off in Gorgie as doom and gloom.

Derek McInnes walked. Lawrence Shankland, Cammy Devlin and set-piece coach Ross Grant all followed him out the door.

They lost their manager, their captain, a fans’ favourite and the coach who made them a nightmare from dead balls.

Then they got beaten by Sturm Graz, beaten by Benfica, and collapsed against Aberdeen on the opening day.

Five league games later, they are second.

And how many of us actually noticed?

The Jamestown model is doing exactly what it said on the tin, and we should be worried about that.

Here is what Sportsound pundit Allan Preston, a man who watches them week in week out, had to say:

This team will only get better, but the main thing is patience. They were so far ahead of where they wanted to be last season. It’ll take three or four or five years to get to where they want to be. In my opinion, I think it will work. It’s working everywhere else, why won’t it work at Hearts?

Now, you can sneer at the laptops if you want.

Plenty of our support does.

But Tony Bloom took Brighton from League One to European football.

He took Union Saint-Gilloise from the Belgian second division to the Champions League, and to a title that ended a 90 year wait.

Are we really to believe he can’t do a version of that at Tynecastle?

Because Hearts were minutes away from their first title in 60 years last season.

Sixty years, and we were the ones sweating on the final day.

Josh McPake was playing League One football with Stirling Albion two years ago, and there is now talk of a Scotland call-up.

That is the bit that should be bothering our boardroom.

Laurent Mendy came through Macclesfield and Forest Green Rovers, and has replaced Beni Baningime without anybody noticing the join.

Calvin Miller was at Falkirk in early 2024 and already has four goals in maroon.

James Wilson barely got a kick under McInnes and spent half a season in Tottenham’s academy side.

He now has four goals in his last six games.

Blair Spittal has gone from impact sub to captain in a matter of months.

And in my opinion, holding onto Claudio Braga this summer when they could have cashed in was a statement of intent all on its own.

Of course, it hasn’t all worked.

Sander Kartum has gone for nothing, Elton Kabangu can’t get into a matchday squad, and their record signing Ageu has managed seven appearances in total.

But there have been far more hits than misses.

And who am I to judge a recruitment department that has produced McPake, Mendy and Miller from that kind of money?

Vrancken could yet prove himself to be a better manager than Derek McInnes ever was.

That is not a popular thing to say, and I’m not saying it to be smart.

I’m saying it because a squad with that much turnover in it should not be gelling this quickly.

It took Hearts a little over a week to replace McInnes, and there was no fuss about any of it.

No caretaker, no interim, no six month audition.

Just a plan, executed.

Does any of that sound like a club you know?

Meanwhile, the entire Celtic support is looking at nothing but the Glasgow derby double header.

Which is understandable, and I’m as guilty of it as anybody.

But look at what could happen in the next fortnight while our heads are turned.

Hearts could be in the semi-finals of the League Cup.

And if they win at Kilmarnock on the Saturday evening, they could be sitting top of the table by the time we take to the field against the Ibrox side on Sunday the 20th.

Top of the table, in September, with a head coach nobody in this country had heard of in May.

A club that walked their captain, their manager and their set-piece coach out the door in the same summer.

We spent all summer arguing about the Ibrox side, and the real threat was coming from the other end of the M8.

Because this is the difference between a club with a long-term vision and a club without one.

Bloom has a model, a sporting director and a manager he’s prepared to give three, four, five years to.

We have a 74 year old manager doing the heavy lifting for a board whose only ambition is a net transfer profit.

One of those two clubs is building something.

The other one is protecting a balance sheet and calling it stewardship.

And which one of them do you fancy in three years’ time?

So by all means, keep your eyes on Ibrox over the next two weeks.

Just don’t be surprised when you look up at the table in May and find the maroon jerseys still there.

I told you I’d save this story for later in the season.

I just didn’t think later would come this early…

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