Seven miles north of the Parc des Princes live Red Star FC, the historic heart of Parisian football. Now Martin Vert needs to make them the powerhouse they should have been, signing only players born in Paris.

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We’re a little light on the training ground following the impressive win over Cholet. Noah Cadiou has been called up for Guadeloupe for the first time, and Josue Homawoo is seeking his first Togo cap. Additionally, a couple of the coaches are off on their training course, after Steve’s latest attempt to undermine me. Still, we’ll manage.

Laval are next up, and they’ve started the season poorly, with just one point from their opening fixtures. More worryingly for them, two of those games were against other sides who have started poorly. They kept a clean sheet last time out though, so we’ll need to finish like we did against Cholet. Cadiou and Homawoo are on international duty, and Jason Tre is serving his suspension.

Our old friend wastefulness rears his head again, and we’re in danger of dropping our first points of the season. I’ll definitely be working on that on the training ground this week. But other than that it’s another excellent performance. We restrict Laval to almost nothing and we dominate all over the pitch. I bring on Tarell Tokpa and go with two up top for the final 25 minutes, and our superior fitness eventually pays off. With two minutes remaining Hacene Benali breaks the Laval offside trap to get on the end of a Guel through ball and finishes. Mayoro Ndoye adds a second in stoppage time with a booming header.

There really just aren’t enough hours in the training day, but I squeeze in a little more Chance Conversion training so hopefully we’ll improve there. I also bring in a performance analyst. Steve tells me there’s no money in the budget, but at the moment our data analysis is just Charly Paquille totting up the number of shots for each side and trying to remember by the time we get to it. That won’t do. Teddy Van Den Kerkhoff joins the backroom staff. He’s young, because computers.

We travel to Bourg-Peronnas for, apart from what the French Cup does to the schedule, will be our final midweek fixture of the season. They have had a very average start, two win against weaker sides, two losses against stronger sides, and play a 532 that packs numbers into their defensive areas. Jason Tre comes back in after his suspension, and Homawoo and Cadiou are still away, but we’re feeling confident.

It takes all of ten minuets for the extra finishing training to pay off, as Mayoro N’Doye sets Meissa Ba free and the Senegalese front man slips it past the goalkeeper.  A couple of minutes later, Ndoye Squared combine for Mayoro to get one of his own, drilling in from the edge of the box. Damien Durand floated a cross for the other Ndoye, Chiekh, to power home a header – he loves powering home a header. Bourg-Peronnas had a spell of pressure before half time, but we got in, refocussed, and Durand put one away from close range just after the restart. I pull them back into the defensive formation, and we see the game out comfortably.

All the press want to talk about is Ludovic Butelle, and I’m happy to oblige. Our 72-year-old goalkeeper has been in immense form, and while all of the defence have been brilliant, he’s been up to anything that slipped through in the last couple of games. His contract runs to the end of the season, and he’s not Parisian, so we’ll lose him. But for now, he’s sublime.

Noah Cadiou and Josue Homawoo are back from international duty, both having picked up their first caps, and they go back into the side. Sparagna twists his knee in training so Kevin Gomis keeps his place, but we make changes for the visit of Le Mans. They, so far, are not a good side. 2 points from 5 games, 1 goal, 6 conceded. But we’re not going to be complacent. Chateauroux, who started the season as 1/100 favourites for the league, are keeping us honest.

Le Mans made us work for it, but in the end our fitness shone through again. Homawoo announced his return from international duty with an early header that found the bottom corner, and when Benali added a second I assumed we would run riot again. But immediately from the restart Issouf Macalou broke through the lines to halve the deficit. Jason Tre belted a penalty in off the bar before half time, and I tried to close the game up. But Le Man came back and scored again just after the hour. Fortunately the game went our way, and they had a player sent off before we made the scoreline look comfortable.

I’m not happy in training the next week. We won, and comfortably, but we conceded. I don’t like conceding. I certainly don’t like conceding two. I firmly believe that if you concede more than 1 in 2, you don’t deserve to be champions. I like a clean sheet. I tweak the training to work more defensively. Still, we’ve got twice as many goals as our next nearest, so if it comes to it we can go full ‘Keegan’s Newcastle’ on this. Except they lost. Because they kept conceding. Hmmm.

Creteil head to the Stade Bauer next, and they’re the best we’ve faced yet. They sit in third, six points off the pace but dangerous. We have everyone available apart from Stephane Sparagna, so there aren’t really any excuses. This is a test of where we are, and what we can achieve, and I tell the lads that before we head out.

Our first half was the best football I’ve seen us play, even including the friendlies against amateur sides. We are controlled chaos, and Creteil can’t lay a finger on us. For their part, they don’t create anything even resembling a chance before Gomis and Homawoo snuff it out. At 2-0, we are looking imperious. But the second half goes differently. We get complacent, we switch off, and we concede from a corner. Perhaps it’s my fault – our three best players on the afternoon are also the three most fatigued, so I hook them off just before the goal. But I still expect more of the team, we can’t rely on Homawoo and Cadiou every game. Still, a win is a win is a win, and we’ll take all of them we can get.

Chateauroux are the late kick off, and we have a particular interest in them. Cholet set up similarly to us, and are very unlucky not to take anything from the game. That bodes well for our meeting next month.

We finish September with a trip to Stade Briochin. They are sitting in mid-table, capable of brilliance and disaster, and inconsistent. We’re down to one fixture per week now, so there’s not excuse not to play our strongest side. Sparagna is still out for a couple of days, but we’re seven wins from seven games, and if that doesn’t breed confidence I don’t know what does.

When Guel curls in from the edge of the area on 15 minutes, it’s deserved. We have pressed them into the mistake, and they have barely got out of their own box since kick-off. Cadiou heads home a second a few minutes later, from a Durand cross, and we’re flying. Meissa Ba adds a third before half time, and this time I’m not going to take off our best players. We keep our foot down in the second half, and Benali and Cadiou combine well down the right to give Guel his second, a lovely spinning strike that sneaks into the bottom corner. When Meissa Ba rounds the keeper on the hour, it’s time to close the game down. We let the intensity dip, we drop back, and we control the game. Briochin score a late consolation, but the defence have been magnificent and it’s only the second time they’ve been able to hit the target. Disappointing, but these things happen. It’s not like the Le Mans game.

The French Cup draw gives us Entente-Sorcy Void Vacon, a tiny team from the regional leagues, but that’s not what’s bothering me. It’s quiet. Too quiet. I’ve gone a whole month, and I haven’t seen Steve once. He’s up to something, I’d bet on it. Four games to come in October, including the cup game and a top of the table clash against Chateauroux. It’s a two horse race at the top of the Championnat National, and it’ll be vital.

This is Paris: October 2021