Sainsbury's will take centre stage this week when it reports to investors on how far it has progressed towards its modest aim of greatness.

Analysts will also be looking for progress at WH Smith and Smiths News as the pair both report full year results following their summer demerger.

The City will be keen to see further progress from a resurgent Sainsbury's on Wednesday and its Making Sainsbury's Great Again campaign.

The supermarket chain posted its best sales figures for four years in June as demand for fresh food, snacks and beer was boosted by the warm summer and the football World Cup in Germany.

It gave Sainsbury's a sixth successive quarter of sales growth and even saw it outperform market leader Tesco, which last week banked record half-year profits of £1.09 billion.

William Hobbs, equity analyst at Barclays, said: "We expect Sainsbury's trading update to show another period of strong like-for-like growth, aided by the World Cup and the warm summer."

However, he cautioned that with Sainsbury's rivals already having set the benchmark in terms of like-for-like growth "there is plenty of room for disappointment in this trading statement".

"We are expecting six per cent like-for-like growth excluding petrol," he said.

Sainsbury's accounts for around 16 per cent of grocery sales in the UK just behind Asda, but a long way off Tesco at 31.4 per cent.

High street heavyweight WH Smith will be under the spotlight on Thursday as it reports results for the first time since its retail and news distribution businesses were demerged.

Shares in WH Smith delisted on August 30 and were replaced by shares in Smiths News - as the distribution arm is now known - while new WH Smith shares began trading on September 1.

WH Smith Retail runs 543 high street and 128 travel location stores, while Smiths News provides newspapers and magazines to an estimated 22,000 retailers every day.

Nick Bubb, analyst at Evolution Securities, predicts annual pre-tax profits for WH Smith to come in at £52 million compared with £40 million for the same period last year.

He predicts like-for-like high street sales will drop 5.5 per cent compared with a fall of three per cent last year while at the firm's rail and airport shops like-for-like sales will rise four per cent, the same growth as last year.

Mr Bubb said: "Ex the News wholesaling business, WH Smith has strong earnings growth prospects, as it continues to engineer higher gross margins from its high street shop sales mix and to grow its travel shop division."

For 2006/7 the consensus for pre-tax profits is around £58 million to £60 million but Mr Bubb believes it will beat consensus at £63.5 million.

Meanwhile, investors will be looking for signs that Smiths News will be able to run more effectively with other retailers who previously viewed the operation as part of a competitor group.

Mitchell Collett at Cazenove predicts pre-tax profits of £30.5 million compared with £29.5 million last year.