"sacking Arsene Wenger would have been the easy way out" - Stan Kroenke

Stan Kroenke believes sacking Arsene Wenger last summer would have been the easy thing to do.

Arsenal finished outside of the top four for the first time in the Frenchman's two decade reign last season but despite opposition from a vocal minority of fans the club decided to press on with plans to extend Wenger's contract by a further two years following a third FA Cup win in four years.

Majority shareholder Kroenke, who is set to take questions from supporters at the club's AGM later today, remains content with his and the board's decision and believes allowing Wenger to leave would have been the easy way out.

“Arsene is strong, he’s focused and I think he showed through all that," he said “We always evaluate, and it’s fair to look at all the factors involved.

"But when you make decisions like that, you are weighing lots of different factors, but you hope that you weigh them correctly and come out with the right decision. I think we did.

"It’s easy to change coaches and people do it all the time. But the hardest thing is to replicate success and remain competitive.

“You have to approach it with clear-headedness, calmness, thinking for the long term rather than the short-term.

"An easy answer is it's easy to do something. It’s harder not to do something."