Arsenal want Wenger to sign a new contract after shock Dein departure

The Gunners announced last night that Dein, 63, had left due to "irreconcilable differences" - putting a big question mark over Wenger's future when his contract runs out in May 2008.

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Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood has made it clear however that he wants Wenger to stay.

He told Arsenal TV Online: "It's well known that Arsene and David have got on very well over the past 10 years and I am certain that Arsene will miss him.

"However I believe the relationship that Arsene has with the rest of the board is good. He is on contract with us until 2008 and we very much hope that he will extend his contract beyond that, but we haven't got into talking details on that yet."

The differences between Dein and the rest of the Arsenal board surfaced over the involvement of American businessman Stan Kroenke, who now owns 11% of the club.

Dein was in favour of Kroenke taking on a bigger role at Arsenal but the other directors all wanted to sign an agreement not to sell their shareholdings for at least a year - something Dein was unwilling to do.

Meanwhile, Hill-Wood has promised Wenger he will still be given money for transfers.

He added: "We've always made funds available to Arsene, he attends the board meetings, he understands the financial position. I can assure supporters that we will continue to provide funds when Arsene requires them.

"We have a very good squad - young, maybe, but developing well and if Arsene wants to strengthen it we have the money to provide him with any reasonable purchases he wants to make."

Dein still owns a 14% stake himself estimated to be worth around £57million but even if he were to sell out to Kroenke, football business experts believe it would be very hard for the American to complete a hostile takeover of Arsenal.

Professor Tom Cannon told BBC Radio Five Live the fact Arsenal are listed on the Plus Markets and the division of shares would make it "almost inevitable" the club could repel a hostile takeover bid.

"It's very hard to see how a takeover could succeed if you have got those shareholders on the board with 45.5% of shares saying no," said Cannon.

"One can be pretty confident that from the smaller shareholders they can pick up the remaining 4.5% of shares to pretty well control 50% of the shares and therefore it's almost inevitable they will be able to block a full-blown takeover."