One of the few medals that Danny Welbeck did not pick up with his former club was one for winning the FA cup, so the England international must have been looking forward to this weekend ever since he scored the winner at Old Trafford in March and condemned his former Manchester United team mates to another season without a trophy.
So the news revealed by Arsene Wenger on the Arsenal website yesterday will surely have come as a bitter pill for Danny to swallow. It appears that the original prognosis on his recovery from some bruising to his bone was too optimistic and he has been ruled out of action for the trip to Wembley.
The manager said, “Danny Welbeck is out still. He will not be fit for us or for England. That’s basically the only injury we have at the moment. Everyone else is available. Arteta is back in full training. We have no new injuries from the weekend.
“He would have been short anyway so I was prepared for that. When I saw Roy Hodgson last we were both confident that Welbeck would be available but we called the FA yesterday to explain that his bone bruising at the knee was not healed and that he absolutely had to rest.”
So apart from Welbeck the injury situation at the club is very positive indeed and that bodes well for the Premier League title challenge to come next season. In fact the news on Welbeck is pretty good for Arsenal as well because he will have a nice long break this summer without the extra few weeks with the England team.
With Alexis Sanchez coming back late from the Copa America, Danny is the clear choice to take over that left forward role and that could turn out to be vital when we kick off the league games early in August. We saw this season how damaging a bad start can be so while I feel sorry for Welbeck about missing the FA cup, I reckon it could be great news for the Gunners.