Champions League: Leicester hit the ground running in Europe as Arsenal and Manchester City meet expectations

Tottenham will have to make the most of their home games after opening match defeat

Leicester's players applaud their travelling support (Getty)

Sir Alex Ferguson operated by a simple rule of thumb when attempting to guide Manchester United through the Champions League group stages.

‘Get to ten points as quickly as possible and then look ahead to the knock-out stages.’

Ferguson’s blueprint was not flawless, with Manchester City finishing third in their group with ten points in 2011-12, but by and large, if you can amass ten points from six games, it is a pretty safe bet that you will be contesting the round of 16 in February.

Even after the first round of group games this week, the road-map to qualification for the Premier League’s four representatives is already shaping up – and for some, they can already slip themselves into cruise control.

Leicester City, having made a majestic entrance onto the Champions League stage with a 3-0 debut victory against Club Brugge in Belgium, can now prepare to welcome FC Porto to the King Power Stadium later this month knowing that two victories and a draw on home turf will almost certainly see them into the knock-out stages.

Porto, vastly experienced at Champions League level, are likely to pose the greatest threat to Leicester in Group G, but their failure to defeat FC Copenhagen in Portugal on matchday one has given Leicester an early shot in the arm and a two-point lead at the top of the group.

Mahrez is congratulated by his team-mates on his first goal (Getty)

But having comfortably dispatched of Brugge on foreign soil, it is difficult to imagine Leicester slipping up against the Belgian champions at the King Power and Copenhagen will also arrive in the east Midlands as underdogs against Claudio Ranieri’s team.

So the value of the opening day victory at the Jan Breydel Stadion is already clear – Leicester already have their destiny in their own hands.

For Tottenham Hotspur, though, the opposite is true and Mauricio Pochettino’s players must now travel to Russia later this month and claim a positive result against CSKA Moscow if they are to retain any hope of qualification from Group E.

Moving their home games from White Hart Lane to Wembley has been a necessity forced by construction work at their traditional home, but it did not work in their favour against AS Monaco, despite almost 90,000 turning out to watch their return to the Champions League at the national stadium.

Monaco had been dismissed as nothing more than a potential outsider having trailed in a distant third in Ligue 1 last season, 31 points behind champions Paris Saint-Germain.

But as they displayed when eliminating Arsenal from the competition two seasons ago, Monaco are a dangerous opponent, full of pace and youthful energy, and Spurs were caught out, losing 2-1.

The defeat leaves them needing to make up ground against experienced opponents.

CSKA have defeated City and drawn with United in recent seasons, while Bayer Leverkusen, the other team in Group E, will pose a stern test of Tottenham’s ambitions, despite throwing away a two-goal lead against CSKA in Germany on Wednesday.

Alexis Sanchez is in talks with Arsenal over a new contract (Getty)

But with back-to-back away games looming in Moscow and Leverkusen, Spurs now have a mountain to climb if they are to remain alive by the time they welcome Leverkusen to Wembley on November 2.

Arsenal sit atop Group A having emerged from the Parc des Princes with a 1-1 draw against PSG, but with FC Basel and Ludogorets playing out a draw in their game, all four teams head into matchday two level on one point.

This is when qualification can become awkward and problematic. If one team is not quickly cut adrift, the race to the line becomes tense and unpredictable, with every point and goal proving potentially decisive.

Arsenal’s incredible qualification campaign 12 months ago, when Arsene Wenger’s team overcame defeats in the opening two games to qualify with a dramatic final game victory against Olympiakos in Athens, emphasised their ability to navigate this section of the competition.

But while a draw in Paris was undoubtedly a positive result, any slip against Basel at the Emirates on matchday two will put Arsenal on the back foot.

Basel are another team well-schooled in the Champions League, having progressed at the expense of United and Liverpool in recent years, and they will arrive in north London will a game-plan capable of upsetting Arsenal.

But with Ludogorets likely to be the weakest team in the group, six points against the Bulgarian champions would take Arsenal to seven points, so Wenger’s team will already be confident of progression.

Nobody will be quite so confident as Manchester City, however, despite Pep Guardiola’s likely insistence that his players still have plenty of work to do.

City’s 4-0 destruction of Borussia Monchengladbach has been overshadowed by the poor attendance at the Etihad Stadium and Guardiola urging the club’s fans to turn up in numbers and end their booing of the Champions League anthem.

But it was a stellar performance nonetheless against a widely-respected German opponent and City highlighted their growing maturity in the competition.

Double headers against Barcelona in Group C are the potential fly in the ointment, with the Spanish champions delivering an emphatic signal of intent with their 7-0 rout of Celtic in the Nou Camp.

Guardiola gestures to the fans at full-time (Getty)

But even if City fail to gain a point against Luis Enrique’s team – and that is by no means a certainty – two victories against Celtic would take Guardiola’s team to nine points.

And with Barcelona likely to claim two wins against Monchengladbach, only a five-goal defeat against Monchengladbach in Germany could threaten City’s hopes of progression with nine points.

But the simple formula is to amass ten points and then breathe easily.