Robin van Persie has admitted that Arsenal would be in better shape next season if they missed out on Europa League qualification.
The Gunners have missed out on any chance to play in the Champions League but could yet still sneak into Europe.
The winners of the FA Cup would go straight into the Europa League and if that wasn't Arsenal, seventh place in the Premier League would earn a place in next season's competition, with Arsenal sat ninth and two points behind Tottenham Hotspur.
However, Van Persie believes that Arsenal would be better suited to miss out on Europe and instead spend extra time on the training ground as Mikel Arteta looks to develop their philosophy to compete for Champions League football.
"You can look at it from two ways really because Arsenal don't really want to be in the Europa League, they want to be in the Champions League," Van Persie told BT Sport.
"When is the right time to do that? From one point of view, you can say it's better for Mikel (Arteta) to have extra training sessions, to work on the tactics, to work on fitness, to go up another level, which is needed to compete at the highest level against the top teams.
"If you ask me, I would say it's better not to qualify for the Europa League, get those sessions in and go up another level, hopefully, and then go next year or the season after they can really compete with the biggest teams."
Former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand agreed with Van Persie but refuted the possibility Arteta would hold that mindset.
"I can't see any manager on the planet saying 'don't worry lads, we'll go for a draw today, lose whatever'," Ferdinand said.
"They want to win. I can see the benefits for them but I can see the benefits for qualifying, financially. If I'm the manager, you'd rather have the time on the training pitch to understand what you want them to do.
"There's no way Mikel Arteta is going to stand there and say 'look, lads, we'll give this FA Cup a bye, we'll let City go through and spend more time on the training pitch next year'."
