As the Premier League reaches its halfway stage with the top four scrunched together covered by four points, it is premature for audacious predictions. Arsène Wenger barely bothered to play the media game when he was quizzed about the various contenders’ prospects before the new year fixtures. After all, since when was football success measured in semi-seasons?

Having said that, if the Arsenal manager reflects on the title-winning seasons he has overseen – and even some of the campaigns that came within touching distance – there is a clear trend of strong second-half charges, where a powerful momentum takes over to propel his teams towards the finishing line. In seven out of his first eight full seasons Arsenal embarked on long undefeated sequences, often including strings of consecutive victories. That brought three titles and four runners-up spots.

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Whether it was all part of the campaign masterplan with training sessions and physical work adjusted to peak at the latter stages, whether it was down to creatine and super-powered vitamin shots or whether the players were simply talented enough to seize the moment, the bottom line was a second-half-of-the-season surge which became a hallmark of the early Wenger years. The challenge for today’s team is to channel something similar in the months ahead.

Lee Dixon recalls being astounded by the feeling within the group the first time it happened, en route to the 1997-98 double. “You could feel it coming,” he says. At the turn of the year Arsenal were quite a distance behind the serial champions Manchester United – in sixth place in the table and 12 points off the top. They had suffered a chastening defeat in December, picked off by Blackburn Rovers, which led to an inquest, and the captain, Tony Adams, was granted some time away instead of battling on through pain. Arsenal were nowhere near being contenders then.

But the reaction to that Blackburn mishap was extraordinary. Arsenal did not lose a single match in the Premier League or FA Cup until they ended the season five months later with Adams hoisting both trophies. A sequence of 12 straight wins in the league transformed the team’s sense of belief. According to Dixon, it created a sensation that most people in professional sports do not often get to experience.

“The way we did it, from being so far behind and going on that run, we almost felt invincible,” he says. “Every game we went out was like a practice match. It didn’t even matter who we were playing. You got into the dressing room and you weren’t even thinking about the opposition. In my experience, although I have won a lot of stuff, those times are so few and far between. To be in a dressing room where you are literally not caring about anything other than being excited because you know you are going to win, if you could bottle that feeling.”

He even describes it, at its best, as a kind of “out-of-body experience”. Dixon remembers the feeling when everything clicks to such an extent “you are taken out of the situation and it is as if you are watching yourself perform. I played in games like that, probably two or three out of 900 or 1,000 games. That season in 1998, on that run, we had those special moments.”

Arsenal’s 2001-02 season echoed the 1997-98 pattern. A rotten defeat at home to Newcastle in December provoked a long undefeated march and Arsenal finished with 13 straight wins in the league. On to Wenger’s most recent Premier League title, and in 2003-04 there were no defeats at all over 38 games.

This habit took a dip when Arsenal found the going most difficult after the move from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium but in the last few seasons they have been able to rely on a late push, a positive run where needed, to ensure their annual top-four finish. It does seem to be a key part of the Wenger make-up.

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On the other side of that coin, another characteristic of all the Wenger teams is a capacity to lose to absolutely anybody, anywhere, often when it is least expected. The calendar year of 2015 has served Arsenal very well with more points than anyone else, but the promising stretches have been interrupted with the odd excruciating defeat. Embarrassing upsets at home to Monaco, away at Sheffield Wednesday and more recently the 4-0 pasting at Southampton demonstrate how a sudden, angst-filled defeat can ambush them just when things are looking good. Teams who feel they can win the league are able to roll with those punches.

What Arsenal have struggled to do in the last few years is piece together strong sequences over the first and second half of the season. Two seasons ago they were top on New Year’s Day but fell away. Last season they were sixth on 1 January then started to gather points with a vengeance.

Wenger is only too aware how much relentless effort is required to complete this season’s jigsaw. Maintaining the fitness and form of key players is crucial. The manager has been encouraged with the way squad players who may not make a fully fit first XI have stepped in. But the influence of Petr Cech, Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez, who have all been part of league-winning sides elsewhere and whose presence and example makes such a difference, is paramount.