Ronny Deila wants Celtic to be top of the Scottish Premiership and through to the knockout stages of the Europa League by Christmas.
The Parkhead side took a significant step towards their European goal with a 2-1 home win over Romanian outfit Astra Giurgiu on Thursday night to take them level with Group D leaders Red Bull Salzburg with seven points from three games.
The champions now turn their attention to their up-and-down league campaign which has left them in fifth place, six points behind leaders Hamilton, albeit with a game in hand.
Looking forward to the visit of Kilmarnock on Sunday, the Hoops boss laid out his short-term aims.
He said: "I hope we are ahead when we come to Christmas that's a goal, of course.
"But we'll see what's happening. Every game is difficult and we need to perform well and get the results we want.
"But I hope when we come to the first of January we are ahead. "If we are 15 points behind at Christmas then it will be hard to get going of course. The points have to come."
While previously stating that 10 points should be enough to qualify out of their Europa League section, the Norwegian put the brakes on expectations but admits he would be "disappointed" if, after such an encouraging start, they failed.
He said: "I don't feel we are there because it is very close in every match in Europe but we have put ourselves in a very good situation after three matches.
"You don't know how much you need, maybe 10 or 11 points will be enough, but of course we go to get nine more so we will see.
"You never take anything for granted in football.
"You take one game at a time and you have an opportunity to win every game.
"But so far seven points out of nine is very good and if we keep on going we will go through."
Deila will wrestle with a "fantastic" selection dilemma before naming his team to face Killie.
The former Stromgodset boss was pleased to see striker Stefan Scepovic score his first goal for Celtic following his move from Sporting Gijon the summer, when he headed in an Anthony Stokes free-kick against Astra.
However, the 24-year-old Serbian was only playing because the more impressive John Guidetti was not registered in time for the group stages of the competition following his loan move from Manchester City.
Deila has preferred to play with a centre forward backed up from midfield - Stefan Johansen is the current incumbent of that position - but he claims he could start with Guidetti and Scepovic together.
"We will see," he said. "That is a possibility. We have different systems so we can play both and we need more than one striker and we have more than two.
"That is good to have a good selection.
"It is a fantastic situation. It could be much worse with nobody scoring and then who are you going to use?
"So that is a positive thing for me."
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