Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta admits winning the FA Cup won't make up for a poor season.
The Gunners will meet Chelsea in the final.
Arteta said: “For me, this club deserves the best and you have to be fighting for every title. Obviously after everything that happened, if we are able to win the final and qualify for Europe, we can say that it's OK.
"But it's not the level for this football club.
Arteta said: “We haven't been consistent. Because we obviously had a lot of issues as well in the background, a lot of things that had happened. But at the end of the day, we weren't good enough to be with the top teams.
“That's not a lie and it shows the big room for improvement and the gap that is still there and has to be minimised really, really quickly in order to be in a good position to challenge those teams.
“It hurts so much. When I said it's a beautiful challenge, and as well from my side, it's to bring the club into those positions again.
“I know how difficult it's going to be because you can see the other teams, what they're doing, what they've been doing the last few seasons.
"The road and the direction we have to take in order to be quick in that transition... I'm very positive that we're going to be able to do it."
