There is no denying that Hearts are challengers for the Scottish Premiership title.
Sebastian Tounekti named Hearts as title contenders before the Jambos beat Celtic 3-1 at Tynecastle to open up an eight-point gap at the top of the table.
Tony Bloom has aspirations of toppling the Hoops and is delivering on his promise, as it stands.
The 2005/06 season was the last time that Hearts genuinely considered themselves to be in a title race, but Celtic ended up recovering to finish ahead of them convincingly.
- READ MORE: The last time Celtic trailed the Scottish Premiership leaders by at least five points in October
Celtic beat Hearts to retain the Scottish Premiership in 2005/06 season
Just like this 2025/26 season, Hearts had a new owner. The controversial Vladimir Romanov took the reins and said he had ambitions to win the Champions League.
They made a great start, winning their first eight games of the season and not tasting defeat until 29 October against Hibernian.
However, off-field issues saw a managerial merry-go-round take place as four different coaches took charge.
That played into Gordon Strachan’s hands, who was able to mark his first season in charge of the Hoops by bringing the title back to Parkhead.
In fact, Celtic beat Hearts on 19 March 2006 to win the league and eventually finished the season a whopping 17 points clear of the Jambos, who were still able to finish second.
When was the last time Hearts won the league?
It has been over 40 years since a side outside of Glasgow has won the Scottish top flight, but Hearts are still one of the more successful in recent years.
The Gorgie club have won the league four times, but haven’t been crowned champions since the 1959/60 season.
Their three other occasions have come in 1958, 1897 and 1895, but Celtic will be hoping that long wait doesn’t come to an end.
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