Every time Arsène Wenger’s contract comes up for renewal there are delays and pauses and waits, and then finally without much to-do he signs.

Different reasons are given each time – one time he actually said he had been too busy to sit down and do the formalities, another he said that his lawyer was on holiday… Both seem highly unlikely, and the fact that Mr Wenger made the comment with that little smile he reserves for when he is having the journalists on, makes one think there was something else.

So we’ve been waiting since January for a signing, and now a new excuse has turned up – that Mr Wenger wants the final say on transfers at Arsenal.

This one has been highlighted in the Daily Mirror but I think it is just another load of baloney because as we all know, no transfer ever happens at Arsenal without the boss saying that he agrees the deal and agrees the price, agrees the salary, and quite possibly the colour of the boots the player will wear.

Well, I say “no transfer ever happens” but I might be wrong. There might have been one such transfer which happened without Mr Wenger’s involvement – the very odd transfer of Park Chu-Young whose move to Arsenal looked to have been more to enable the player to get a work permit and avoid military service than for footballing reasons.

But the Park affair was a one-off oddity – for every other deal Wenger is the boss, and what he says goes. Indeed it would be an extraordinarily stupid shareholder to argue with him given the financial stability Arsenal have been granted through Mr Wenger’s tenure. He has given the club a world-wide profile that it has not had since the 1930s, and at the same time astonishing financial success and stability.

One must always ask, “who is better suited to manage the finances of Arsenal than Arsène Wenger?” It is doubtful there is anyone – which is why if there is any sort of issue at Arsenal, it is not about controlling who the club signs.

Anyway, Stan Kroenke has confirmed Wenger will sign a new long-term deal, although he hasn’t yet told us the date. But what he didn’t remind us (although we already know) is that this deal will be different – because it will be the last.

For Arsene Wenger is 64, and the next deal must surely take him to the end of his career as day to day manager. He might stay on thereafter in some other role – but the problem Arsenal are then going to have is to work out how to avoid a Ferguson-Dilemma. Asking the boss to move out of England to commentate on French TV might help.

Of course there are always conspiracies and rumours around – if there were not this would not be football. One is that Mr Wenger will sign his contract just as he prepares for his 1,000th game as Arsenal manager: against Chelsea. That could be seen as rubbing in the fact that while Jose Mourinho moves for the sake of moving all the time, Mr Wenger has only had a handful of clubs.

Another rumour is the option of him signing once Arsenal have won the FA Cup this year, but that could backfire if Wigan manage to overthrow Arsenal as they have done Man City (twice).

What Mr Wenger would like most of all would be not just to win each game he sends a team out to play, but also get one back on the journalists who now cannot write an interview without relating how many years it is since Arsenal won a trophy.

It is a curious approach, since no one writes about Tottenham citing how long it is since they won the league, and indeed the mentioning of the issue has no point since everyone knows the story having been told it 5000 times. But it is what the journalists do – just as they hype up the signing of the next Wenger contract.

But maybe after all Mr Wenger has something up his sleeve. That could be fun, especially if it happens against Chelsea with Jose watching on.