Hleb and Flamini were key players in the Arsenal midfield last season
There have been longer droughts in sport.
It is approaching eight years since the New York Yankees won the World Series, 31 golf majors went by without a European success and it is 74 years since the rain eased long enough to allow Lancashire to be named county champions.
Oh, and lest we forget, when Liverpool were last crowned league champions Microsoft was about to proudly release Windows 3.0 and middle Britain was up in arms over the Poll Tax.
All of which offers absolutely no comfort to Arsenal fans - who have to cast their minds back to the FA Cup final in May 2005 for the last time they supped a celebratory, trophy-winning drink.
You have to go back a further year for Arsenal's last league success - in four years the Gunners have gone from the Invincibles to the outsiders.
And as Arsenal legend Lee Dixon told BBC Sport, a club like Arsenal simply cannot go three, four or five years without winning trophies.
I'll challenge you to name anyone who has left and gone on to bigger and better things. There aren't many places you can go and enjoy your football so much
Lee Dixon
"They made huge inroads last year but obviously they fell away," said Dixon.
"I thought they were very close - two or three games, that was all it was. There were games they were up in against the big teams that they lost and it looked very hopeful but there has been a bit of unrest in the summer by losing a couple of key players.
"Those gaps have been filled by the youngsters who have come through and look as if they are going to get a chance this year but I still think they are two players short. I am a bit worried about the start of the season."
Two players like Mathieu Flamini and Alexander Hleb perhaps, who have left for AC Milan and Barcelona respectively? Both key players last season, both earmarked as key players in Arsenal's future, yet both now playing elsewhere.
New, even younger recruits have been brought in but is there a danger that Arsenal are great at identifying talent but increasingly less adept at hanging on to it?
This year, Hleb, Flamini and almost Emmanuel Adebayor, who next? Bacary Sagna, Gael Clichy or, heaven help the Gunners, Cesc Fabregas?
Manager Arsene Wenger conceded in an interview in July that the club has to make a profit on transfer dealings, with expensive players leaving to be replaced by younger talents, focusing on the "collective quality of their game".
Could - and whisper it quietly - Arsenal be a selling club? Dixon thinks not.
"We are certainly not a selling club but these young players get their heads turned," he countered.
"They are moving on to bigger and better things in their mind but I don't see that as an onlooker. If you leave Arsenal there are not many places you can go on an upward step.
"I think Flamini had his head turned with money and going to such a so-called big club but I think he has made a mistake and I think the other players will see that.
"I'll challenge you to name anyone who has left and gone on to bigger and better things. There aren't many places you can go and enjoy your football so much.
"You can go to other places and earn more money and maybe that is a sign of the modern player."
And yet the upheaval, while creating one itch, could help Wenger scratch another. Dixon says that while the manager is desperate to land a first league title since 2004, he also wants Arsenal to have an English core.
Theo Walcott, Mark Randall, Jack Wilshire, Kieran Gibbs and Welshman Aaron Ramsey might not be the men to fire Arsenal to the title this year but at least they might be at the club for the long haul.
Manchester United built their success on a core of young British players who stayed, while much of the foreign talent came, flickered brightly and then left.
Tony Adams and Lee Dixon were part of an English core inherited by Wenger
Arsenal have had the style but not the foundations and Wenger has seemingly been building a chateau on sand.
"Arsene has always wanted to keep an English core but he has found it difficult," added Dixon, who won four league titles as part of a fabled English back-five while a Gunner.
"When we all left it was the decline into an all-foreign team and he was more disappointed than anyone but he has struggled to bring in English players and nurture them to first-team capabilities. Now he has a crop he really believes in.
"There is no doubt in my mind that having an English core in an English team is beneficial to the club. You need to have that affiliation for your home club.
"I feel over the years that has been lost. They have produced some brilliant football but the actual loyalty and commitment to the club long term are not there."
Of course, loyalty and ambition tend to be uneasy bedfellows and it is a lot easier to keep world-class players when the team is winning trophies, especially the league.
"I'm very much a believer you have to get the league right," added Dixon. "It is more important than the Champions League and more important than cups. In the league you play 38 games, that's the most important and that is Wenger's philosophy.
"He will be more disappointed than anybody that they have not put a really good challenge up for a few years now."
But will that challenge come this year or do Manchester United and Chelsea remain a class apart?
"I think they will finish third," said Dixon. "It pains me to say it because I want us to challenge and win it but I just feel we're a little bit short."
Arsenal's wait for silverware, any silverware, might go on a little while longer.
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