The Scottish Premiership title race has contracted to two contenders, with fans from each of the three clubs involved telling BBC Scotland that Hearts and Celtic are now the sides most likely to decide the championship. The assessment follows Rangers' defeat at Tynecastle, a result that has shifted the mood among supporters and, it appears, their expectations.
BBC Sport gathered the views of fans from all three clubs — Hearts, Celtic and Rangers — and found a shared sense that the loss at Tynecastle marked a turning point. That supporters of the defeated side are willing to concede ground in a title race is notable in itself; that rival fans agree only reinforces the picture.
Hearts, who play their home fixtures at Tynecastle in Edinburgh, have long been a fixture in the upper reaches of Scottish football without consistently threatening for the title. A win over Rangers carries symbolic as well as practical weight, and it arrives at a point in the season when the table begins to matter in ways it did not in August.
Celtic, for their part, are familiar occupants of this position. The club has dominated the Premiership for much of the past decade, and any rival claiming to close that gap does so against a backdrop of considerable recent precedent. Whether Hearts can sustain a challenge across the remaining fixtures is the question the rest of the campaign will answer.
Rangers' position is not necessarily terminal — leagues are rarely decided by a single result — but the consensus among supporters, as reported by BBC Sport, suggests the margin for further error is now considerably smaller. A side that drops points at a rival's ground and loses ground in the table faces a recovery that grows more demanding with each passing week.
For now, the picture is one of two clubs separating from the rest. Whether that changes will depend on what both Hearts and Celtic produce in the weeks ahead.