As Chelsea celebrated their fifth Premier League title on Sunday (that’s eight fewer than Arsenal) with another bore draw, this time against Liverpool, Arsene Wenger must have been wondering ‘what might have been’.

The best side in Europe in 2015, the Gunners paid a heavy price for the injuries they suffered in the first half of the season, a fact Wenger himself has mentioned recently.

Now, speaking to the media in the build up to the next Premier League game against Swansea at the Emirates on Monday night, the manager has added another reason on to the list of ‘why Arsenal didn’t win the league’ – Chelsea’s consistency.

“The problem we had this season is Chelsea had no real blip,” he said. “They lost only two games. In a normal championship I think we would have come back into the race. Chelsea lost only two games and in games like when they won at Hull and QPR, they were not at their best but could still manage a win. These are the kind of wins you have when you smell you are close to winning it.”

Regardless of all of that, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that at no point prior to a month or two ago did anyone count Arsenal in any sort of title race.

Obviously the manager and the players would have thought it was a possibility at the start of the season, but until the win at Old Trafford, weirdly in the FA Cup, no-one expected Arsenal to hit a target they are now making a big deal out of them missing.