Of the many assumptions, theories and supposed conspiracies swirling around Arsenal ahead of a match tonight that could quite conceivably decide Arsene Wenger’s future, one of the more ludicrous is that there is no one willing simply to tell their manager when his time is up.

That’s right, Stan Kroenke, a man estimated by Forbes to be worth $8.1 billion, who has owned major American sports teams for more than 20 years, is somehow so in thrall to Wenger that he could not bring himself to take the ultimate decision.

This is the same Kroenke, remember, who has just moved an entire NFL franchise 5,420 miles from St Louis back to Los Angeles because he deemed it beneficial to his franchise’s long-term chances of success. You can imagine how that went down in St Louis.

The point here is not to get into that particular issue but to understand how Kroenke operates and what that tells us about Arsenal’s biggest decision for a generation.

After all, despite everything we relentlessly hear from fans, pundits, club legends and journalists, and regardless even of what current board members, executives and players think, Wenger’s future will depend ultimately on the opinion of only one man.

Is the end nigh for Arsene Wenger? credit: Getty Images

And, while well aware of the current angst, we can say with some certainty that Kroenke’s decision will not be particularly influenced by the prevailing mood on Twitter or Arsenal Fan TV.

He will also not worry excessively about a sequence of four straight defeats. He will instead attempt to process every piece of relevant evidence and then follow through with his judgment, regardless of how it might be received by fans or indeed Wenger himself.

A consciously unemotional approach to decision-making has shone through in every audience with Kroenke since he became Arsenal’s owner back in 2011 through to our most recent meeting last October.

“From my dad’s advice, it’s important to take the emotion out of decisions because if you are making decisions with emotion then they can come back to haunt you in the future,” explained Josh Kroenke, Stan’s son and also an Arsenal director.

They both also suggested that it had not been an automatic decision last year to extend Wenger’s contract and were clearly greatly impressed by how Arsenal ended the season.

Stan Kroenke has some tough decisions to make credit: Getty Images

“We always evaluate,” said Stan. “When you make decisions like that you are weighing lots of different factors.”

Those included the negativity from some fans. “They are passionate about the club, they have the right to their thoughts, their opinions and the only part I worry about is how it affects the players and the coaching staff,” said Stan.

“It can have a deleterious effect on that group and that’s the last group you want it to have a bad effect upon.” It is very significant, then, that Josh has been staying in London recently and, as well as taking in matches, frequently visiting the training ground and the club’s Highbury House administrative base.

From Wenger’s perspective, his timing could hardly have been worse. Indeed, when Josh also spoke generically about their various sports teams this week to the ESPN basketball journalist Adrian Wojnarowski, it was hard not to think of Arsenal’s current situation.

“You've got to have open and honest dialogue about the reality of everything we’re in because if we are sugar coating anything about ourselves, about our team, about our direction we're only kidding ourselves and we were going to be worse off for it in the long run,” he said.

It was also especially interesting to hear him talk about the decision to sack George Karl from his head coach job at the Denver Nuggets NBA team in 2013 amid a wider expectation that he would have his contract extended.

Mikel Arteta is a possible replacement for Wenger credit: Getty Images

Karl had overseen an extremely successful nine-year period in the context of the Nuggets’ history but he had been unable to translate his success in repeatedly reaching the play-offs into a sustained run towards the NBA finals.

To put that in an Arsenal context, it was remarkably similar to Wenger’s recent Champions League record in regularly reaching but not then going beyond the first knockout round.

The Karl decision was clearly agonising but it was described ultimately by Josh as “a chance to jump-start our programme in a different direction”.

And while the Kroenkes might not hire and fire with the speed of Roman Abramovich, they are now on their 10th NFL and eighth NBA head coach since their respective investments began in 1995 and 2000.

Arsenal has been an anomaly simply because the final assessment has always been that, in either qualifying for the Champions League or winning a trophy, Wenger has delivered as much and sometimes more than you might logically expect from a manager with the fourth biggest budget.

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It is why the Europa League is now so vital and the decision that awaits is so fascinating. A second successive season outside of the top four – and a likely lowest ever points tally – would clearly not place Wenger the right side of any dispassionate assessment.

In understanding the potential profile of the next Arsenal manager, it is perhaps also instructive to consider their current experience at the LA Rams.

The Kroenkes had a similarly big decision to make in January 2017 after firing Jeff Fisher and they duly made Sean McVay the youngest head coach in NFL history.

McVay had played only college football for Miami in Ohio before coaching Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Florida Tuskers and the Washington Redskins, where he had been working as the offensive coordinator.

McVay was just 30 when he was appointed by the Kroenkes. And how has he fared? He finished 2017 with an 11-5 win record and was named ‘Coach of the Year’ by the Pro Football Writers of America.

It is a story that should greatly encourage men like Mikel Arteta and Eddie Howe - and one that tells us very definitely that there will be no hesitation in giving a younger and more inexperienced coach their chance if they sense that he is the best candidate.