It’s hard not to look at Arsenal, and the form they are currently in, without a major sense of regret.

Obviously, it’s great that they are in this form now. It’s brilliant that Alexis, Santi Cazorla and Mesut Özil seem to have finally found each other’s wavelengths. It’s wonderful that Aaron Ramsey is such a willing accomplice and that, in Le Coq, we have a player ready, willing and able to keep the back door locked whilst the four in front of him are out having a rave up.

But I just think, “What if…”

What if we had gone into this season and not had to play Nacho Monreal at centre back?

What if we had given Francis Coquelin a try when Mikel Arteta’s injury problems first began?

What if we had begun the season with two proper centre forwards in the squad, rather than Oli G, a young prospect and an impostor masquerading as an international footballer?

I don’t want to get too down on you all, but really, with the form Arsenal have been in in 2015, we should have been a lot closer to Chelsea than we are currently. They’re worthy champions, of course they are.

Anyone 13 points ahead of their nearest challenger with four games left deserves to win the title. However, they have profited, variously, from Manchester City’s implosion, Manchester United’s inconsistency and our own horrendously laboured start to the season.

Of course, it’s that start to the season that is the root of my, relative, worries today.

You have to go back a long way, I haven’t researched this by the way I’m trusting to my memory, to find an Arsenal season which has been consistently impressive from August through to May. The easy thing to say is that the last time we did it would be in 2003/04 – which of course resulted in that most glorious of title triumphs. It’s easy because it’s more than likely true. And if anyone wants to say that, well, May 2004 wasn’t that impressive, I’d argue that the job had been done by then. It was largely irrelevant.

Since then, I reckon the closest we’ve come has to be either last season, or the 2007/08 one. Both seasons started brilliantly only to fall away calamitously. On the other hand, three years ago, the season began amidst a real sense of mutiny, but finished… if not brilliantly, then much, much better than anyone would have hoped as they trooped out of the Emirates following a December defeat at home to Swansea.

The question on my mind, then is how the hell do Arsenal match up the form they are ending this season in with the form that began last season and therefore launch, and sustain a title challenge?

Clearly, it helps to have not just a team, but a squad, full of great players. As I have said before, I don’t think we’re that far away. I’m not going to get into another squad depth, who do we need to sign, type of conversation. Not again, not now anyway, it’s not worth it. However, I think the crux of the issue for Arsenal now is that, for the first time in a long time, we are no longer reliant on just one person to come up with the goods for us.

Alexis Sanchez has had a marvellous debut season for us, an inspirational one I would say and, following a brief lull after his return from injury, has begun winning matches for us again. However, Aaron Ramsey, despite being deployed out wide, is also making regular match winning contributions again. Mesut Özil, the £42m “catastrophe” in the words of a good friend of mine has just won the player of the month award. Again.

Then there is, of course, our irrepressible Spanish genius at the heart of the team. Waiting on the bench to replace these players are guys like Jack Wilshere, the Ox, Theo Walcott. All guys who are capable of winning matches in their own right- some to a higher degree than others, obviously.

I think the accusations which, ludicrously, stretch all the way back to Thierry Henry’s time at Arsenal that we are a one man team can now, definitively be consigned to the history books. The amount of talent we have at our disposal now puts me in mind of Henry Hill’s “Oh you had a fire?” voiceover in Goodfellas.*

That can only be a good thing for the competitiveness of the team now and reading Per Mertesacker’s comments earlier this week about how the squad now know that in training they have to go a “higher gear” lead me to a much more obvious reference point.

You may remember that Amy Lawrence’s wonderful book ‘Invincible’ came out at a really tricky time for Arsenal.

Last autumn, led by the very same man who managed his way through that historic season, it’s fair to say that the current Arsenal team felt a million miles away from the Invincibles. Reading the book and reading about a team who thrived on competition and, constantly, went hell for leather at each other in training.. well, it was a problem for me. I didn’t understand how the man who oversaw that season could have been happy with what he was now seeing. Where was the competition for places? The willingness to fight for each other?

Well, galvanised by a player on the fringes of the Arsenal team for the last seven years, that willingness to fight has returned, Aided by an almost fully fit squad, there is now a proper bun fight for places in the Arsenal team.

The Ox is actually a great example of this new model Arsenal. Up until his injury at Old Trafford, he was a huge part of the team’s success. However, with Aaron Ramsey doing a very good, if slightly different job on the flank that the Ox was occupying, how does he get back in? If he doesn’t get back in there, does he oust Cazorla, Alexis or Özil? Probably not.What of Mathieu Debuchy, up against the wonderful Hector Bellerin?

For the first time, in a long time, perhaps for the first time in some of these guys careers, they’re having to fight for their right to party. That can only be a good thing for Arsenal Football Club. If we can augment the squad and avoid major losses in the summer, then I think we’re in great shape for a title tilt next season.

*I’ll explain that if you want me to but, really, it shouldn’t be necessary