Does Wenger's wavering mean he is preparing to take French leave?

As the Arsenal contract saga drags on, Alex Hayes believes delay will lead to departure

A week in the life of Arsène Wenger is never dull. The north London derby against Tottenham yesterday, the Champions' League trip to the Spanish league leaders Deportivo La Coruña on Wednesday, and then the small matter of Manchester United's visit next Sunday. No wonder the Arsenal manager compares the sequence to a game of Russian roulette.

While the Frenchman is only using such strong imagery in order to protect his tiring squad, the truth is that it is his own future which may rest on results over the next few weeks. No one is suggesting that the sack is imminent, but failure to regain the Premiership or, worse still, to make serious progress in the latter stages of Europe, could persuade Wenger that the time has come to move on to pastures new.

"You don't think," he says of the ever-congested fixture list. "It's like Russian roulette: you just get through one round, then move on to the next, then the next, and so on." How many more rounds, though, is Wenger prepared to go as manager of Arsenal? His continued refusal to sign an extension to his contract (which runs out in the summer) can only really mean one of two things: either he has been offered a job elsewhere or his employers do not wish to retain his services. Somehow, the latter option does not seem likely. David Dein, the club's vice-chairman, is a long-standing admirer of Wenger and it appears he has been doing everything in his powers to persuade his manager to stay and build on the promising work of the last five years. Equally, though, Dein is also one of Wenger's oldest friends and you doubt he would stand in his way.

But why the secrecy and the delay? The secrecy, it would appear, is linked to Dein's concern that any negative announcement could jeopardise the club's financial position. With a new 60,000-seater stadium in the pipeline and the possibility of a part-floatation to raise extra funds, the Arsenal money men would be anxious not to rock the boat, at the very least until a suitable replacement had been found. The delay, for its part, might have something to do with Wenger's determination not to become a lame-duck manager. Days before the new season started, the Frenchman said he would never want "to do a Sven Goran Eriksson at Lazio" by announcing his departure months before the end of the season.

Wenger likes to be in control of his destiny. He is also a loyal and dedicated manager who would not want to destabilise his club mid-way through a season. But the contract saga is only confusing the situation more, and you wonder whether Wenger and Dein would not be better off making an official announcement one way or another. After declaring in early August that his contract would be signed before the start of the new season (some four months ago now, on 18August), the Frenchman has since grown increasingly weary of any discussions with the media over his future. "Soon, soon," had been his favourite phrase. Now, there is only an eerie silence.

The problem with admitting departure, of course, is that the rumour mill would slip into overdrive over his next port of call. The France job seemed a likely destination for a while, particularly as the current manager, Roger Lemerre, is expected to stand down next summer and move upstairs into Aimé Jacquet's chair, but that was before Wenger's very public row with the French Federation over the friendly in Australia.

Then there is the Japanese national team job, but the best time to manage them would surely have been at next summer's World Cup finals on home soil. In truth, Wenger has always favoured club management because of the day-to-day involvement and the potential to work with some of the best players in the world at the same time.

Not that he is able to call on all his stars at Arsenal these days. As if an unusually leaky and inexperienced defence were not enough to contend with, the manager now has to tackle the champions of Spain and England without his leading forward, Thierry Henry, and his up-and-coming striker, Francis Jeffers. Meanwhile, the non-flying Dutchman, Dennis Bergkamp, misses the mid-week game.

So they will travel to La Coruña with trepidation. You suspect that Wenger, who rates the Spanish team as one of the benchmarks of Europe, would happily settle for a point. "They are the champions of Spain for a start, which is no mean feat when you consider they are competing against the likes of Barcelona, Valencia and Real Madrid," he says. "I believe they are the most Hispano-Brazilian of all the clubs and they can achieve anything. Technically alone, I would say they are one of the best teams in Europe, perhaps even the best."

Wenger, who will no doubt be impressed by their two impressive performances against Manchester United in the previous group stages, adds: "I have not yet had a chance to see the games [a 2-1 victory in Spain followed by a 3-2 triumph at Old Trafford], but I believe they deserved their wins. They are not the quickest side in the world, but they can win matches just by passing the ball well. People always go with the name, but the truth is that La Coruña are better than Barcelona at the moment. They have tremendous intelligence."

Having failed to draw, let alone win, any of their away matches in the initial stages, Arsenal will be anxious to reverse the worrying trend which has accompanied them on their travels. After being drawn in the toughest group, alongside Juventus, Deportivo and Bayer Leverkusen, the Gunners cannot afford to lose their opening match.

"Getting something from the game is the priority," Wenger says. "It is the biggest test away from home since the beginning of the season. We have a weakness away in Europe. That was perhaps defendable early on in the competition – at Schalke because we had already qualified, at Mallorca because we played with 10 men, and in Athens because we played under special circumstances – but this time it will be a real test."

Arsenal may be weakened, but Wenger insists his players have a real chance to make an impact on the Continent. "I feel this team have demonstrated their potential in the League but not yet in Europe this year," he explains. "We have played a bit with the handbrake on and I think we need to put our foot on the pedal and be much more aggressive going forward. We have not always played with the freedom we are used to. You can make every reproach you want to Arsenal this season when it comes to our defence because we are conceding too many goals, but you cannot say we are not scoring a lot because we look like we can get a goal at any minute. That's encouraging."

Passionate, intelligent and motivated; if you listen to this eloquent man talk for long enough you will soon forget that you ever harboured doubts about his future. And yet the simple truth is that the chances of Wenger remaining at Arsenal next season grow more distant by the week.