After a promising start and pretty awful end, we are all happy to put August behind us and get on with the season, muttering “only 9 more months of this crap.”

Yes, I am blocking out the cheerful and optimistic Anita because I am neither cheerful nor optimistic about this season and y’all have to deal with it. Of course, this will change as soon as we put 3 in against Bournemouth and 5 against Doncaster…

September brings us 6 matches, with 2 fixtures in the dreaded Europa League. It starts with an international break so no reason to get nervous and miserable until the ninth when we host Bournemouth who don’t look half bad and will probably make me regret that “put 3 in” comment.

After that, it’s time for the Podolski derby and our first ever Europa League fixture, when we host FC Koln. I have no idea what to expect from this one (except a half-empty stadium and lots of tweets from Poldi) so any win will do.

Then, because life isn’t nice, we travel to Stamford Bridge to play Chelsea who will surely have gained confidence by then and win easily.

Luckily, only three days later, we host Doncaster Rovers in the Whatsitsnamethisseason Cup where I expect we will cure our frustrations by winning 2-1 via a Giroud bullet header in 88th minute despite having 98% possession.

The last league match of the month comes against West Brom at home on Monday night – Kieran Gibbs’ homecoming. I will miss the lad, even though he didn’t do much. I will never forget his clearances that saved us a top 4 spot and helped us turn the Cup final around.

I hope we smash the Baggies, though, no sentiments there.

The month ends with a trip to Belarus for our first away match in the Europa League, against BATE Borisov who, just like us, are usually in Champions League so can’t be that good. A draw, perhaps? Who knows.

I’m sorry, this hasn’t been a cheerful intro for September but I’m frustrated and angry just like most of you.

Nevertheless, I tried to cheer us all up and asked @GunnerBallZ to do an illustration of Eduardo, a huge fan favourite, celebrating his goal against Everton.

As usual, scroll through until you find the size/orientation you want, click for the full size version, and right-click to save.

1. For 16:9 screens

2. For tablets

3. For phones

4. For 16:10 screens