With hopes of the title or runners-up spot now gone, Wenger has the luxury of being able to experiment for the trip to the Stadium of Light on Sunday.

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Having already given young Polish keeper Lukasz Fabianski and Brazil teenager Denilson their head in the last two games, the Arsenal manager could now hand Kieran Gibbs an opportunity at Sunderland.

The 18-year-old – just back from a successful loan spell with Coca-Cola Championship side Norwich – was on the bench against Everton and Wenger indicated he would once more turn to the players of the future as he looks to give others a rest ahead of the summer internationals.

"It should be nearly the same group of players who are available, nobody is coming back from injury, certainly," Wenger said.

"But I could give one or two players an early breather because they go to Euro 2008 or the African qualifiers.

"So Kieran Gibbs, who got on the bench last weekend, could be involved again, so could Mark Randall."

Wenger is set to have some rebuilding work to do over the summer, with out-of-contract midfielder Mathieu Flamini having signed up for AC Milan and speculation continues over the future of Inter target Alexander Hleb.

"I will try to buy, maybe in the defensive area and one on the creative side of the game as well because we had some players, important players, who were out this year," said the Arsenal manager, who has been linked with a £12million move for Portsmouth's Croatia winger Niko Kranjcar.

"When there is a problem in England, people say 'you have to buy' – but you have to consider as well the development of players internally.

"It isn't just down to money because we have bought players for nothing and they became world stars.

"It is also down to the quality of the scouting, the quality of the work in training and the quality of the development in the players.

"I believe much more in that, working in an intelligent way to make a player improve.

"If we lose, people leave the game and say 'Wenger, you must buy a centre forward' if we haven't scored, or they want a central defender if someone has made a mistake. But you have to accept that the team can be developed.

"This team made 68 points last year and this year 83. That is 15 points difference and in between we lost Thierry Henry and we lost many, many important players during the season. So you cannot say the team has not developed. Now the target for next season must be to make 90 or 92 points."