What if.

Another season has come and gone and it's been another season of so close, yet so far. After a disappointing defeat to Tottenham on Wednesday night, the inquest can begin as can planning for next season and importantly the summer transfer market. Once again after a season that even as recently as a week ago, promised so much the trophy cabinet remains empty for another year.

So we are left to think what if, what if Robin van Persie was fit for the season, for that matter what if a lot of Arsenal players had been fit for the season and what if we had bought in January or even last summer. I've already heard people picking out Arsène Wenger as the problem, blaming him for having too much faith in the team, for not buying but things have been put out of Wenger's control this season.

Going back to the very beginning of the season, when everyone was fit, when we had started quite well, were people saying Arsenal should have bought then? When you give this Arsenal squad a clean bill of health there aren't many better teams in Europe. That's what Arsène was probably looking at over the summer and January transfer windows, he didn't and to be fair nobody expected the amount of injuries Arsenal would pick up.

Arsène Wenger before the Spurs game said van Persie was in the Messi and Rooney bracket and Robin didn't let him down when he came on to end months on the sideline. But if Robin is in the world class bracket, I'm sure Cesc would join him there, that's two world class players on the sidelines for months of the season. Cesc's injuries combined have probably seen him miss two months and we all know how much Robin has missed.

So take two world class players out of our rivals' teams, take Rooney and well actually just take Rooney alone out of Manchester United and they would struggle, then take Drogba and maybe this season Malouda out of Chelsea's line up and would they still be champions. My point being that without such a giant injury list, Arsenal would have been a lot closer if not winners this season, the Tottenham game started without six first team players, Robin, Cesc, Arshavin, Gallas, Song and then Vermaelen went out injured. Would any other team be able to be in our position with those injuries.

Having said all of this, I think Arsène is finally having doubts with this team, after losing to Spurs he said the team lacked' maturity'. I think that is the first time in at least the past few years, I have ever heard him doubt this team, is that a hint that changes may be made during the summer, has the manager lost faith in some of the players.

There is no doubt that there is money that can be spent in the summer, I've read somewhere between 30 and 45 million, and it is all but certain that Chamakh will be joining, but defence is the one area that needs serious strengthening, with Silvestre clearly ageing, Sol was probably a six month back up plan and at the moment Gallas could leave on a free. Not forgetting Djourou, who I think could be a very good defender alongside Vermaelen.

I would also say luck has not gone our way on the pitch either, I'm thinking of Chelsea's recent run of good luck with the referee's and the many times things have gone awry for us this season. As always luck is a massive part of a title winning season and unfortunately luck has never really wanted us to be champions this season.

The point in all this though, is that we have been very unlucky this season. I'm not making excuses here, I've been majorly frustrated many times this season when we've let points slide that should have been in the bag but then again with our injury list, it was surprising we were even still in the title race at this point. It is not Arsène's fault for not buying because no one could have predicted this kind of stretching of our squad, if we strengthen our defence in the summer and have even a little extra luck with our injury list then next season could finally be a successful one.

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