Hearts reaction: Celtic star has serious competition, Naisy avoids a real low, don't tell him to shoot

We pick out some observations from Hearts’ 6-1 win over Ross County at Tynecastle ...

Golden Boot race is well and truly on

The race for the Scottish Premiership Golden Boot is now hotting up. Lawrence Shankland’s hat trick takes him onto 21 league goals, just two behind Celtic’s Kyogo Furuhashi. Motherwell’s Kevin van Veen, meanwhile, is not far behind in third place. His strike against Celtic means he is on 20 goals. Such relatively prolific sharp shooting contrasts with last season, when no one – Hearts player or otherwise – broke through the 20-goal barrier. The then Celtic striker Giorgos Giakoumakis and Ross County’s Regan Charles-Cook shared the honour of top scorer on the grand total of 13 goals. As for Shankland, it is just good to see a Scot near the top of the charts. He will be needed in June when Scotland face two critical Euro 2024 qualifiers against Norway and Spain. Surely there’s no chance Steve Clarke can overlook him this time after he was initially left out of the squad for the last games against Cyprus and Spain (he was belatedly called up after an injury to Che Adams in the first game).

About time for 20 goals

Hearts never looked back at Tynecastle from the moment Alex Cochrane put them ahead.

Shankland has become the first Hearts player to score 20 or more league goals in a season since, well, who would have guessed it, John Robertson. But that was as long ago as 1987-88. It seems utterly incredible that a club the size of Hearts have gone so long without someone hitting this fairly modest total in the league. Robertson scored 26 in total during that campaign. The winner of the golden boot in Scotland that year was from … Dundee. Tommy Coyne struck a remarkable 33 times in the league for the Dens Park side, 24 of them coming before Christmas. Despite this, Dundee could only finish seventh. Shankland is now the 39th Hearts player to score 20 or more league goals in a season for the club. The most recent Hearts player other than Robertson to do was Willie Gibson, in 1977-78. He scored 20 times as the Tynecastle side earned promotion back to the top-flight behind champions Morton. All this information and more can be found detailed on the excellent Hearts Heritage Twitter feed - @Hearts_Heritage

Naismith avoids a real low

The pressure was on Steven Naismith on Saturday even if it didn’t seem like it to judge by the expressive and dynamic performance from his team. Hearts obviously needed to win to boost their chances of finishing third. But not only that, Naismith’s first game in charge at Tynecastle saw him seeking to prevent Hearts falling to seven consecutive defeats for only the second-ever time. Only once in the Gorgie club’s proud history have they lost seven or more games in a row, and that was in 1978/79 when they finished a miserable top-flight campaign with ten straight defeats. They didn’t even manage to score in eight of them. There was little chance of Hearts falling to a seventh successive loss on Saturday from the moment Alex Cochrane struck the first of his side’s six goals after 17 minutes. It seemed more likely that another record might fall – that of Hearts’ biggest league victory. For those wondering, it was not that long ago: 10-0 v Cowdenbeath in 2015. But that was the Championship, of course. Their biggest-ever victory is 15-0 against King’s Park in the Scottish Cup in 1937. That looked attainable too at one point.

“Shhhoooooooottt!” – well, maybe not

After the toxicity of recent weeks, particularly during the 2-0 defeat to St Mirren that cost Robbie Neilson his job, it was good to see some humour return to the stands at Tynecastle. Ross County’s goal from the penalty spot was given an ironic cheer at the end from the home fans. It was also well celebrated by the Ross County supporters, whose reluctance to leave despite their team trailing by six goals at the hour mark was admirable. Their backing was terrific all things considered. But perhaps the moment that raised the biggest smile was when defender Toby Sibbick – who does like a goal, it must be noted – strayed forward in the second half and was urged to “Shhhoooooooottt!” by the home fans. He did as they instructed and watched a painfully off-target shot land high up in the Gorgie Stand. The fans could hardly complain since they told him to have a go.