And so the streak is broken. Despite beating Everton 3-1, Arsenal missed out on a place in the Champions League for the first time in 20 years.
"Overall I believe that we played since January in a very difficult environment for different reasons," Arsene Wenger said. "Some obviously that you know about and that [are] very difficult for the group of players to cope with. Some other reasons we will talk about another day, but the psychological environment for the group of players was absolutely horrendous."
His words brought to mind those of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who said of the war on terror that there were "known knowns," "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns."
The stuff we know about -- Wenger's refusal to commit, Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez running down their contracts, injuries to some key players at the wrong time -- is well documented. We can only speculate on what stuff Wenger "will talk about another day" but I wouldn't be surprised if it had to do with minority owner Alisher Usmanov and his takeover bid, which Stan Kroenke rejected.
Usmanov reportedly made a formal offer in April but these things don't come out of the blue. Before the documents go out, key figures are consulted. And you'd expect that wind of an attempted Usmanov takeover might have gotten to Wenger, Ozil's people, Sanchez's people, chief executive Ivan Gazidis and goodness knows who else.
Stuff like that creates uncertainty. Kroenke turned down the bid but what we don't know is how quickly (and how emphatically) he said no to Usmanov. It would not be surprising if, with the possibility of a new owner taking over in the summer, it had a knock-on effect on Wenger and some of his key men.
It's by no means an excuse, merely an explanation. Just another tidbit to throw into the cauldron of mistakes and mishaps that hit Arsenal this season.
To read more of Marcotti's thoughts on what happened over the previous week, click here.