Danny Welbeck is racing against time to be fit in time for the start of the new Premier League season. The English international was excluded by Arsene Wenger from the 27 player Arsenal squad for the pre-season tour of Singapore.
Welbeck is suffering from a knee injury that ruled him out of the final weeks of the last season. He went through the entire season enduring problems with his knee joint. Welbeck went through treatment at the club’s London Colney headquarters in his bid to get ready for the pre-season.
But, as things panned out, Welbeck missed out the pre-season training and will be out of the next week’s Singapore tour. Now, the hope is that Welbeck will be available for the Emirates Cup later this month.
The 24-year-old English forward was signed from Manchester United in what was regarded by many as a mistake by United. Welbeck wanted more game time as a forward and Wenger was looking for a backup for Olivier Giroud. Everything clicked and Welbeck became a Gunner in September 2014 for an estimated fee of around £16 million. His time at Arsenal did not entirely go according to the script. In between injuries wrecking his season, Welbeck appeared 25 times for Arsenal across competitions. He scored 4 goals in the process but did not look entirely convincing. Wenger initially thought that the injury to Welbeck would keep him out for a matter of days but, frustratingly for everyone, the injury has dragged on for months now. Welbeck will remain behind in London when the squad depart for their Asian pre-season tour to Singapore.
Welbeck’s last appearance was against Chelsea on 26th April. He now intends to concentrate on regaining his fitness for the new Premier League season.
Wenger must be immensely disappointed at this latest setback. One of the reasons why he went for Welbeck’s signature is his appreciation of versatility. He can play as a forward or even on the wing, which gives Wenger lot of options. Not that he needs options but Wenger always appreciates versatility.
There were calls from supporters for Wenger to sign another goal-scoring forward. Someone who can give 15-20 goals a season would add a new dimension to this attack. This is exactly what Wenger expected from Welbeck, but he is nowhere close to delivering…
With the new season starting a week earlier than scheduled, it would be a real struggle on the medical team for Welbeck to be fit for the season opener or keeping him fit on a regular basis. Wenger’s main dilemma is, even if Danny is available to play, will he be able to add more goals to his game?
Should this be a precursor for Wenger to dive into the transfer market and find a new striker?
Sridhar
Welbeck not good enough
Giroud not good enough
Walcott not good enough
Sanago not good enough
We need a top striker period….
Spend the money and grant the fans wishes Wenger!!
your not good enough
Good point muff. I think JA should come up with some sort of rewarding system for fans by going by support and well wishes contributed in here. Say someone stands out as possibly most insightful fan of the week/month (for instance someone backs giroud more than anyone that week and then giroud becomes match winner or MOM/POM) due to said wishes support.
And for the most pessimistic fans playing the same note over and over and over they should have their avatar wearing a giant dunces cap for a week/month. Interestingly though if we do fall on our ass well then the said most pessimistic could become most insightful.
Welbeck has huge potential. He will come good this season, but this should not stop us from signing a top striker. I think we are being a little harsh on welbeck, he has not fully got a chance to prove his qualities yet. He is a good striker and great squad player to have and I think he has already paid a huge part of his transfer fee with the goal he scored against manure. That goal will always be remembered. Great talent welbz and I have faith in him. He will come good and score more goals this season
At 24 years of age, you shouldn’t be talking about potential anymore. At that age he should be delivering fairly consistent performances as he gradually reaches his peak over the next three years. Even Wenger stills mentions his potential! Players that become great or very good will almost always be at a fairly high level of performance by 24 (apart from keepers). If Danny was 18, 19, 20, then yes, I could understand all this potential talk.
This is Arsenal, we should have better!
He is still young, he had a season troubled with injury, I’m just saying give him time to prove his qualities. Plus is he a bad squad player to have??he’s fast and has lots of energy, its his finishing that is an issue which Wenger would surely work on.
Also if he is beginning an entirely new role well then it is potential as he will not have hit his ceiling yet.
My own honest opinion is that he will never become an instinctive striker (always where the ball seems to drop) but he still can be a very dangerous one. And who knows, maybe you can teach instinct.
Benzema, Higuain or Lacazette
I can’t wait to see if Walcott as a striker works out or not.
It’s not going to work in most games, especially most of the big games. The only effect it will have on big games is defenders will be that much bit more aware when pushing up.
Theo will never make it as a top class striker…
All these thumb downs mean Theo has what it takes to be a world class striker. So why all you fans are calling for a new striker???let’s stick with Theo then. Make up your damn minds.
Some people dont like the word never, whos to say. Also bringing in an already polished finisher is like the saying goes… better to be safe than to be sorry.
Sanogo = secret weapon 🙂
There is an exceedingly good reason to have concern, but with Giroud injury free, Walcott being able to do an impersonation of a striker, the option to have no striker and play a six man midfield with Wilshere, Coquelin, Ramsey, Cazorla, Ozil, Walcott and I do believe Rosicky is great in an advanced position, plus Chamberlain is available for selection.
We also have 7 weeks and 3 days until the transfer window closes. We might even promote one of the youngsters to the first team if he grabs the opportunity to impress during pre-season. We have not sold SaNOgoals yet, so he can might surprise us.
The problem I have with Welbeck, is that he should never have been signed in the first place, purely because he wasn’t good enough. I always thought he was a headless chicken at Man Utd, so I was pretty gobsmacked when Wenger signed him.
Although Welbeck has been poor for us, I feel none of us have the right to really criticize him. He’s clearly only good enough to be playing for a mid-table team at best (Swansea, Stoke, West Brom, etc), so one has to ask the question…why did Wenger sign him? Because of Wenger, Welbeck has been placed into a situation where he was never going to succeed because of his ability (lack of). So any criticism should only be directed at Wenger. It’s like putting Mo Farah up against Usain Bolt in a 100m sprint. Would one criticize Mo for not winning or would time be better spent investigating why the race even happened?
I disagree, welbeck has huge potential. He had a number of great performances for us kas season. Against manure and galatasray for example. So he has the potential but one thing that is missing from his game is lack of confidence, another would be his finishing. Remember what Wenger did to Henry???he can do the same with welbeck. I think we should give welbz more time
Fit or not Welbeck simply doesn’t cut it for me. LVG said it before he dispatched him to us and his one season with us further proves this fact.If he was class would they let us have him? Your guess is as good as mine! And i repeat, if we want to have a shot at the title, we must make a daring bid for Lewandoski, Cavani, Benzema or settle for Lacazette. Hanging on to this mindset of making do with what we have will always fail us like it has done in the past 10 years. Barca just won the treble with a star studded squad that most coaches would only dream of, yet they are adding more depth to the squad by siging up Turan and Pogba against January. Now thats intent! thats ambition!
Blaze
Firstly we can’t compare barca with arsenal
Secondly we do need a top class striker yes we do
Thirdly welbeck needs more time and games to prove his quality. His goal against manure was a turning point in our season. He is a great squad player to have,no doubt in that. And if Wenger can turn a useless Henry into a world class striker he can do the same with welbeck
Did you just say “a useless Henry” really? i had to read that twice! Now talking about Welbeck and his goal against manure and similar performance, thats exactly what he does he gives you an outstanding performance once in many games, thats not what we need, we need players that will give a good level of consistency in almost every game. That how titles are won! Its either we get it done like how its meant to be done or we should accept the second fiddle role we play to the likes of Chelsea, Mancity, Juve, Barca, Madrid and PSG
Henry was useless for juventus, he was a winger and Wenger transformed him into one of the best strikers in the world. On the welbeck thing I’m just saying he is a good squad player to have. He will be transformed by Wenger.
I still don’t get why we signed him to be honest. Last summer Wenger said we didn’t need anymore strikers but on the last day Arsenal bought Welbeck for £16 millon. To make things more confusing, Wenger said that had he been in London he would have loaned him.
If we signed a top striker, Welbeck would basically be in the same position he was at United as a backup winger. I’m not sure if that was £16 millon well spent.
Welbeck has more pace than Giroud but Giroud is a better finisher and holder of the ball than Welbeck.
I wish we had a striker who has pace, excellent positional play, excellent holding and finishing
That said, he has time to improve his game and we will never forget his goal against United.
Fred he will improve his game cuz obviously the talent is there, he just needs to bring it on the pitch. Wenger can do wonders with this kind of players. Welbeck reminds me a lot of our own Henry. Fans should support him and have some faith.plus as you mentioned and so did I his goal against manure was worth lots of money, I say that goal was worth 8 mil at least
Henry always had a very good touch and ball control, this is the area were Danny needs improving the most. If he improves there well then lining up shots will become much easier for him.
For the love of God give welbeck at least one more season before calling for his head. I think he will improve massively this season.if he doesn’t then we can get rid of him.
Well do we have a choice? Unfortunately, Wenger loves him to bits! But honestly, i dont see him making any significant improvement just like Giroud when given more game time. His work rate is great but he lacks that predatory instinct of a natural striker. It can never be hidden its there for everyone to see. I saw those instincts in Lacazette when i watched him play for the first time at the U 21 worldcup in 2011. So am not really surprised to see him gradually reach his potential.
Welbeck hasn’t been that prolific striker for us that many expected to be, but he has been very helpful. Whenever we talk about a striker we look at its stats, rightly so, but stats isn’t all there is to someone’s game. In this era of “Opta Stats” football fans have become too deluded. Ospina’s save percentage is better then that of cech but is he really better then cech? I guess not. The striker situation is very complicated this year. Its true that we don’t have a perfect and proven striker but our 3 strikers eliminate the weaknesses of each other. However, only one can play at a time and it will be upto AW to play the right man everytime and to make timely substitutions.
Ps- I would rather go for a quality winger than a striker.
Me too. I say sign a winger and stick with giroud, welbeck and theo
But why do we need 3 strikers to change around depending on our opposition? I’d rather we had a striker that could consistently score regardless of who we’re against. How many games did Costa get benched because Rémy was faster? Or Aguero get benched because Bony was stronger? I can’t remember it happening. The best strikers can score against anyone, and we don’t have a striker that can do that.
We only signed Welbeck because we were left desperate on the last day of the transfer window with Giroud having just been injured against Everton, leaving us with the prospect of Yaya Sanogo as our main striker for 3 months.
But why were we left desperate? Was it because of some freak injury to Giroud? Or was it because Wenger and Gazidis, for the 3rd consecutive transfer window, failed not only to buy a better quality striker than Giroud, but even to buy adequate back-up for him? Not acceptable.
Welbeck was ok and did a reasonable job for us whilst Giroud was out, but long term I could never see him fitting in at Arsenal. Danny is a great guy, everyone seems to like him, and he has great potential. But he’s at the age now where he should really be showing how good he is, and he’s not delivering.
He will deliver, just give him time
Am not sure on what basis some of the guys on here are judging him. He made 14 appearances at centre forward and scored 6. The rest of his 19 appearances were out wide. He is scoring for England at nearly a goal very other game (14 in 32) in a system that works for him. In that sense his versatility is his best and worst attribute – how do you judge someone who is constantly in and out of the team and starting in different positions? SAF spoke often on the matter frequently.
And if we are going to judge a guy on his goal return, someone in his first year with us without the benefit of a pre-season, who has played the majority of his games for us from out wide, then what do we say about someone like Ox with a total of 12 Arsenal career goals from a wide position? And why do we laud and praise Mourinho for playing Willian in the same position as Danny has been playing for us – the Willian who has 8 Chelsea career goals to his name.
Seancali that’s a pretty weighty thing to say…do you want things in arsenal to improve or deteriorate? From the way you sound I can tell every aspect of your life is downright negative.
Welbeck control is poor so he find it difficult to hold a central position high up the pitch and tight with defenders. So his solution is to drop in a deepish wide position to receive the ball (fullback position) that would allow him more time and space to gain control of balls pass to him. That in itself reduces his effectiveness as a striker and his ability to score goals and a regular basis, but suprisingly, most of Arsenal fans thinks he drop back to help defends. Thats is surely not the case, Manchester united would play two defensive midfielders Carrick and Fletcher and Welbeck would still drop back.
Welbeck has spend six years at Manchester United, is a veteran in terms of experience, has made very little improvement and has probable peak. Therefore, the £16 million spent on him is a waste of money and a last minutes panic buy from Mr Wenger.
It’s a good job it’s only your opinion tho Harold!! U pay for what u get so 16m for an English winger/striker in welbeck is a good deal ! We all no he’s not world class or ever will be but he is a decent squad player who’s very powerful and good at dribbling at pace and a very good 3rd choice striker and 2nd choice winger