As we start to tick ever closer towards our tough start to the season (Wolves notwithstanding), looking ahead at our next few games has occupied my thoughts quite a bit more than it usually does, I have to admit. When the fixtures first came out there was a bit of dialogue about how hard we had it to start off with and I did some initial thoughts about why I wanted us to have a slightly easier start to the season to build momentum here. Of course it is what it is and you just have to play the cards you were dealt with, so today I thought I’d go through some of these fixtures and give some thoughts as to what I think our target should be by the time we get to October. But even when we get to October we have a run of three tricky games with the Scousers at home, Geordies away and Chelsea at home at the beginning of November.

But for simplicity of my own brain, thinking that far ahead feels a little too far advanced, so I want to map some of my expectations to the end of September for starters. It’s in my personality you see; the way I do most things in life is to break big tasks / jobs /things down in to smaller manageable chunks; in work, when I’m exercising (“just get to this hill, then if you want you can stop and have a rest, Chris”), etc. So to break down our season in to mini ‘projects’ is how I am thinking right now, which is something I wonder if Arteta and his coaching staff are doing as well.

So for me our first ‘project’ for the season is to get to September and see where we are at. There are 18 points in that time, so what is a realistic ambition that could set us up for the rest of the season?

I would say an ‘A*’ opening to the season is obviously 18 points. Anything between 15 – 17 points is an ‘A’, 12 – 15 is probably a ‘B’ and anything below that would be a ‘C – need to do better’. If we’re truly hopeful of competing for the title this season, the margins for error are negligible and therefore you can be dropping points early on, not when City are probably going to drop one or maximum two this season.

So how do we get to those better graded results on our report card?

For me I feel like Villa, Brighton at home and Leicester at home are absolutely ‘non-negotiables’, to coin an Arteta-ism. Villa are a good team, they will be a tough opponent, but let’s not forget what happened last season. At their gaff we were poor and we missed a fair amount of chances. At our place we should have been out of sight at half time, then they rope-a-doped us late. Unai Emery has some kind of charm spell over Arteta because what with Villa and Villarreal getting one (or two) over us under Emery, it feels like Arteta needs to be laying down a marker this weekend on our old manager. I’ve seen some people make suggestions about ‘out-tacticking’ from Emery, but honestly I didn’t see that last season; I saw a man who had his side well-drilled enough, but they were open defensively against us, left us with pockets and a high line – certainly at home – and ‘got away with it’ a little both home and away. It is incumbent on Arteta and his team to make sure we finish our chances this weekend.

If we do pick up three points at a tough away ground, then we have to be beating a Brighton side who will still be able to cause an upset with their approach and style of play, despite the change of manager. But at home, when you are a title-challenger, these are the games you win. Liverpool and City of the past years have done just that in those games.

If we can do that then we have ourselves nine out of nine and we play two of the hardest games of the season – the Scum away and City away. I’m thinking that at this point in the season there’s nothing wrong with two draws and so I would absolutely take that to knock us up to 11 points. Take the draws, maintain momentum of sorts, so that when you play Leicester you can get back on track with a win and see out the end of September on 14 points.

That would take us to ‘B’ category on my above scoring system, which I think is probably what you would call ‘on par’ for expectations and leave us within touching distance. Of course you could see City win all of their opening six games and that would have them clear of us by a fair chunk by October, but they will have played Ipswich, Chelsea, Brentford, West Ham and Newcastle during that time; so a slightly more favourable run and more difficult games to definitely come.

If they can drop any points that would be useful, especially if it’s to us, which would – if my hopes and dreams come true for the opening results of this season – put us also in to that ‘A*’ territory for a start to the season. It would bump us from 14 to 16 points, would mean we’ve taken points off City and I’d be surprised if we weren’t top by then, given that would be almost a perfect record.

Of course we want to win the North London Derby and, of course, we want to break the Emptihad hoodoo. But I just feel like it’s a tall ask to be taking maximum points at this stage of the season when we are still feeling our way, getting players up to fitness and working out our approaches.

But what do you think? What would be a ‘bare minimum’ result in your eyes? Do you think we can get maximum points from our opening six games? Let me know in the comments.

Catch you all tomorrow.