Gunners look set to stay in the shadows

Arsenal start a season not in the Champions League for the first time since 1997-98 and it may not be a short sabbatical outside Europe's premier club competition.

As Manchester United showed, winning the Europa League is a viable route back into the big time, but the Premier League path looks blocked by teams on a more upwards trajectory.

It was not all bad last season for FA Cup winners Arsenal, who finished fifth with 75 points and in doing so set a new Premier League high for teams missing out on the top four.

The Wembley win over Chelsea saved the campaign and the Gunners won eight (nine if you include the FA Cup semi-final success over Manchester City after extra-time) of their last ten matches when Arsene Wenger switched to a back three.

However, there was nothing unfortunate about finishing fifth. Arsenal conceded 44 goals and their shots-on-target ratio (share of match shots) of 0.54 was the lowest of any side in the top eight.

Goalkeeper Petr Cech was not protected anywhere near well enough and Arsenal failed to dominate their opponents - Mesut Ozil had ten fewer assists than the season before - even though Alexis Sanchez was on a one-man crusade as he contributed a superb tally of 24 league goals. A whopping 15 of those came away.

Sanchez scored 33 per cent of Arsenal's overall total and his future has been the subject of much speculation as he enters the final year of his contract.

The will he stay or will he go story is almost as tiresome as the debate on whether Wenger was right to carry on with Arsenal after a 13-year title drought.

Record summer signing Alexandre Lacazette at least looks a guaranteed goalscorer after breaking the 20-goal mark in his last three Ligue 1 campaigns with Lyon.

This is a tougher test but Ozil will enjoy feeding the lively Lacazette, who is arguably more suited to Arsenal's style than Olivier Giroud and his arrival shows signs of much-needed ambition.

However, the defence remains vulnerable and it will be interesting to see whether Wenger become sidetracked by the marathon Europa League campaign, a tournament which offers him a realistic opportunity to break his European trophy duck.

Key stat
Arsenal scored in 34 of their 38 league matches last season.