By Aimee Lewis

Arsenal ended the season trophyless for the third consecutive season

Or does it?

There will no doubt be a few sore heads in Cheshire as Sir Alex Ferguson and his Manchester United squad recover from Sunday night's title-winning celebrations.

(Disclaimer: With a Champions League final looming only a few glasses will have been raised. Possibly.)

Meanwhile, Sir Alex's managerial rivals, Messrs Grant, Benitez and Wenger, will be feeling a little green too, but for altogether different reasons.

And no-one will be feeling more despondent than Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger, who has described this season as the biggest disappointment of his managerial career.

The Gunners, playing with a tempo and verve which epitomised the beautiful game, had threatened to carry all before them, yet for the third year running there will be no silverware to go into their trophy cabinet.

But at least the Frenchman does not have to worry too much about criticism from the club's fans.

I'd rather play the kind of football we play and not win trophies. In 12 months' time it won't matter who won the FA Cup An Arsenal fan

Numerous callers to BBC Radio 5 Live phone-ins have praised Wenger for creating "art and poetry" at Arsenal.

And one supporter went as far as to say: "I'd rather play the kind of football we play and not win trophies. In 12 months' time it won't matter who won the FA Cup. We'll remember how good we felt and the great games we watched."

But can watching your team play with panache and scintillating flair ever compensate for a failure to win trophies? If football is not about the winning then why keep score?

David Ginola, one of the greatest artists to have played in the Premier League, told BBC Sport he would sacrifice a few step-overs for the sake of a winners' medal.

Flair at the expense of the team is not good David Ginola

"You should entertain as much as you can, but not at the cost of losing the game. Flair at the risk of the team is not good.

"I never lost track of the sight that winning was important.

"From a player's point of view, when you are on the pitch you won't get a second chance."

But we all know where Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich stands on the matter. Would Jose Mourinho have been given the sack last September had The Blues played with a little more elan?

If rumour is to believed, Abramovich entered the dressing room after a drab goalless draw with Rosenborg in the Champions League, shook his manager's hand and sarcastically gushed "fantastic football".

A few hours later Mourinho received a text message telling him his services were no longer required. The Special One, despite bringing two Premier League titles, two League Cups and the FA Cup to Stamford Bridge, was gone.

Mourinho was Chelsea's most successful manager

Abramovich, having invested �587m in Chelsea, craved more. He wanted sexy football and charisma on the pitch rather than just in the dugout.

But while one man may desire to play the game as if it were a waltz - full of deft movement and totally mesmerising when conducted by true artists - another may enjoy a game which incorporates the kind of adjectives associated with an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

Take Sam Allardyce. The former Bolton and Newcastle manager is more scientist than artist.

His pragmatism at the Reebok Stadium ensured Bolton dined at English football's top table season after season, with the added sweetener of a League Cup final and a sojourn into Europe.

Trotters fans were content to feast on what some would describe as meat and potatoes football. In the north-east, however, supporters want their team to play with, as former England boss Bobby Robson once said, "plenty of wit".

Victory is not enough, there also needs to be beautiful football Johan Cruyff

Not that there is anything wrong with meat and potatoes as part of a varied diet, of course. Wenger may have once said "when you eat caviar it is hard to go back to sausage," but haute cuisine can lose its novelty.

Ferguson, as he closes in on a possible Premier League and Champions League double, seems to have struck upon an almost perfect balance - a game-plan based on an impregnable defence against the aesthetically pleasing Barcelonas of this world, while loosening the harness when faced with less threatening opponents.

Yet, no matter how gallant the defeat, no-one remembers glorious nearly men, right? Well, no as it happens.

The bearded Socrates was famed for his blind heel pass

And winning and playing with style are not necessarily uneasy bedfellows. Johan Cruyff's Ajax team of the seventies dominated European football, lifting the European Cup in 1971, '72, and '73, while transforming the game with their version of 'total football'.

"Victory is not enough, there also needs to be beautiful football. I find that wonderful," Cruyff said.

Away from international and European arenas, West Brom have gained promotion to the Premier League playing in a manner which would have drawn plaudits from the purists, though Stoke's uncompromising style brought the same reward.

606: DEBATE Abramovich wanted sexy football and charisma on the pitch rather than just in the dugout BBC Sport's Aimee Lewis

We wait to see which approach proves to be the more successful in the Premiership, though it's a fairly safe bet as to which one will attract more neutrals.

At the end of the day, defeat, no matter what form it may come in, is hard to swallow, but watching your team play like Brazil, rather than Wetwang's second XI, at least helps soften the blow.