The Gunners have not lifted the championship trophy since their invincible campaign of 2003-04.

Although they have since won the FA Cup and reached the final of both the Champions League and last season's Carling Cup, Arsenal have been able to finish only fourth in the past two years.

With the likes of Tottenham, Newcastle and Aston Villa all harbouring ambitions to break into the Champions League places themselves, pundits have been quick to dismiss the chances of a side who sold their talisman Thierry Henry to Barcelona during the summer.

Wenger, however, maintains the current squad have both the talent and the "hunger" to mount a sustained challenge over the next nine months.

"If you come within our squad, you will see that there is a big contrast between how we see the situation and how our environment [outside] sees the situation," said the Arsenal manager.

"Because we know we have quality, we know we have a style of play, we know we have a hunger, we know how we have prepared.

"We have created a strong belief, we have a great solidarity in the squad and we know that what matters is now. That is why we are so keen to show it.

"That is the pride of the champions to come and show how good you are, and I believe this team wants to show that."

Wenger continued: "You win when you are good enough. We have very young players, but we have a lot of experience already.

"[Cesc] Fabregas has played over 100 games in the Premiership and some players do not have that at 25.

"It depends how much experience you have and how much you want to win.

"This team has got into the final of the Champions League without losing one [European] game in the whole season and maybe we learned our trade a little bit last year.

"We are ready to blossom."

Arsenal have certainly been impressive during pre-season, with victories in both the Emirates Cup and at the Amsterdam Tournament.

With last season's leading goalscorer Robin van Persie fit again and in sharp form following five months out with a broken metatarsal, and summer signing Eduardo da Silva ready to make his mark on the Premier League, there is certainly plenty of hope the squad can cope without Henry.

However, Wenger knows his side must learn the hard lessons of the previous campaign, where a lack of consistency against teams in the lower half of the table proved costly.

"We lost the championship from (teams) 10 to 20," he said. "Against the top four we were the best, top 10 we were second, 10-20 we are fourth.

"So we lost the championship last year against Sheffield United, Fulham, West Ham, against these sort of teams.

"Maybe we were not consistent enough in our focus because that is where we lost the points."

The Arsenal manager knows the importance of getting off to a flying start, having suffered following the move to Emirates Stadium in 2006 and with Arsenal now already facing a fixture backlog because of their Champions League qualifier.

"The start is very important for us," said Wenger.

"Last year we were seven points behind after three games. We played Aston Villa [drew], we lost at Manchester City, we played Middlesbrough and lost two points.

"It was difficult and we had not played any of the contenders."

Wenger does not feel Arsenal are the only side capable of pressing Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool in the race for honours.

"I expect more than four teams in it because many of the clubs have bought big players. Some of them will not be successful in doing it - but one of them will be," he said.

"Will it be West Ham, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Newcastle? All of these clubs who were not in the top four have bought - in one of these it will click."