Danny Welbeck Makes His Point to Louis Van Gaal in Arsenal FA Cup Win

When a player looks back at his career, he tends to assess it by two criteria: medals and moments. At Old Trafford, Danny Welbeck produced a moment that wrote him in to Arsenal FA Cup folklore and kept alive his hopes of securing a medal in his debut season as a Gunner.

On reflection, the winner was only ever going to come from one man. From the moment the team line-ups emerged with Welbeck surprisingly named ahead of Olivier Giroud at centre-forward, the crucial points of the match’s plot ought to have been obvious. The stage was set perfectly for the England striker.

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Make no mistake: This was a huge night for Welbeck. Back at the club he grew up supporting and playing for, he certainly had a point to prove. Last summer, Louis van Gaal made it very clear he considered Welbeck surplus to requirements.

That must have hurt him. As a native of Manchester’s Longsight district, Welbeck would have loved nothing more than to achieve his goals in a United shirt. Instead, he was pushed out of the club by a manager who had worked with him for a matter of months.

Perhaps that’s why he celebrated his goal quite so raucously. In recent years, a trend has developed of players opting for muted apologies when scoring against their former club. Some might have expected Welbeck to follow suit. How wrong they were. When he rounded David de Gea to slot home the winning goal, Welbeck roared at the sky, letting out a host of emotions.

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There was joy, but there was undoubtedly a little anger too. That goal, one can’t help but feel, was a poignant and pointed message to Van Gaal.

It’s also a moment that could do wonders for Welbeck’s fragile confidence. This, after all, was his first goal of 2015. Since Giroud returned from a broken leg in November, Welbeck has struggled to get game-time as a centre-forward. 

That much was evident in the first half, when the ball was bouncing erratically off the energetic frontman. However, Welbeck’s defining quality is a refusal to give up. He chased, harried and fought his way in to the game, never giving United’s defenders a moment’s peace.

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That relentless hard work paid dividends when he latched on to Antonio Valencia’s loose ball to nick the winning goal. 

After the game, Arsene Wenger was full of praise for his young forward, per TheFA.com:

"

We all want to do well when we play against our former club, to show that you are a great player, but it’s not easy to deal with the mental situation of it.

He focused just on his game, didn’t do anything special. He just played football like we wanted him to play. He has shown mental strength because it’s not always easy to deal with that.

He just wants to win. He’s a team player, that’s what I like about Danny. He’s intelligent and he always wants to do well for the team. 

"

Not only has Welbeck settled his score with Van Gaal, but he now has a manager who clearly believes in him. After his heroics at Old Trafford, the Arsenal support will be utterly enamoured with their Manchester boy too.

James McNicholas is Bleacher Report's lead Arsenal correspondent and is following the club from a London base throughout the 2014-15 season. Follow him on Twitter here.