Danny Welbeck Can Prosper at Arsenal but Manchester United Sale Still Made Sense

Speaking on talkSPORT this week, Gary Neville, the widely respected television pundit, England assistant coach and former Manchester United player, admitted he was doubtful about the wisdom of the club selling Danny Welbeck to Arsenal for £16 million.

Neville said:

"

There’s been right-backs and left-backs galore who have been bought for £15m, £14m, £13m this summer. How have they got him for £16m?

I can’t work it out to this day. It really does feel strange that it’s a centre-forward and actually it’s helped out a competitor, someone who will be vying for those third and fourth places with United this season.

I’m struggling to understand the logic behind the deal in two or three ways really.

"

So is he right? Have United made a terrible error and handed Arsenal a bargain?

It’s easy, of course, after Welbeck has just scored twice for England, to suggest Louis van Gaal, the United manager, has made a dreadful mistake—although that’s not quite what Neville has done, for all the inflation of the story in certain newspapers. But that doesn’t quite tell the full story.

The headlines at Old Trafford this summer have been, understandably, captured by the arrivals, the huge amount spent on Angel Di Maria, Radamel Falcao, Ander Herrera, Daley Blind and Marcos Rojo. But this has also been a summer of necessary offloading at United, with Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Shinji Kagawa, Nani and Patrice Evra (and Tom Cleverley on loan) all leaving.

To call them deadwood would be unfair, but they are players whose time at the club had come to an end, whether because of age or because form had deserted them.

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Welbeck teeters on the edge of that category. He is 23, but started just 52 league games for United, only 28 of them in the past two seasons. With Falcao joining Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie, and Louis van Gaal apparently impressed by James Wilson, he had become a fifth choice. How many games would have started this season? Ten, maybe? Fifteen or 20, perhaps, if there were injuries.

Given the commercial imperative at United, to get £16 million for a player who probably wouldn’t have started 16 games—particularly one who will not drive shirt sales and commercial opportunities in the way more established stars such as Falcao, Rooney and Van Persie do—and to clear him from the wage bill when there is a fresher, cheaper talent in waiting probably makes sense.

Does that make Welbeck a bad player? No. It just means he wasn’t quite what United need—and if they are shifting away from 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 to 3-5-2 (something that is by no means certain), then the fact he can play on the left as well as centrally is of less relevance.

There are those who have raised the point that Welbeck goes to Arsenal knowing he wasn’t a player they were desperate to sign, that it came about purely because of the coincidence of his availability at a reasonable price and the injury to Olivier Giroud. But football is full of such quirks; however it has come about, this is an opportunity for Welbeck to become a regular, to play 30 games this season, the majority of them probably in his preferred role at centre-forward.

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What his arrival offers is yet more speed. As Theo Walcott commented this week at a press conference for Sportwaves, a charity exhibition and auction for the Willow charity, Arsenal should have “the fastest forward line in the Premier League” when he, Welbeck and Alexis Sanchez operate together.

The effect of that is beneficial in two ways. Firstly, it should get the best out of Mesut Ozil, who needs quick players breaking ahead of him for his through balls to be truly effective. And, secondly, if opposing defences sit deep to guard against those runners, there should be more space for Arsenal’s midfield passers to spin their filigree webs.

The doubt about Welbeck, of course, has always been his finishing: He is quick, and moves intelligently but, for all that he produced some sensational finishes—notably for England against Sweden at Euro 2012—there is a sense that he is wasteful in front of goal. Yet Opta stats show that his chance-completion ratio is 25 percent—precisely the same as Daniel Sturridge. The case of Sturridge, anyway, shows how a player’s goalscoring can blossom at 23 when given a run in a side in a central position.

Of course Welbeck may falter, or Arsenal may not play him centrally, but at least he has a chance. This looks like one of those rare transfers that might be good for all parties.