What a year 2011 has been for Danny Welbeck so far. After suffering from injuries that curtailed the end to his season out on loan to Sunderland, the young Manchester-born forward has started the season on fire for Manchester United scoring 5 goals.
He is now seemingly on the verge of making his competitive debut for England this coming Friday in their final Euro 2012 qualifier away in Montenegro and judging by the way he’s played so far this season where he has looked a threat, only a fool would bet against him not being in Fabio Capello’s 23-man squad for the tournament in Poland and Ukraine should England as expected qualify for the tournament.
Starting the season ahead of Dimitar Berbatov, Welbeck would have had a huge amount of pressure on his shoulders to justify being picked ahead of last season’s top scorer for the club. However againgst Manchester City in the Community Shield he led the line well and despite not getting much of the ball in United’s league-opener against West Brom, was able to bounce back in style against Spurs the following week.
He overcame a nervy-looking first half performance to arguably be the catalyst for United’s 3-0 win on the night. He led the line well and deservedly scored the opening goal with a fantastic header that gave Brad Friedel in goal no chance. Whilst there’s no doubt his heading ability is one of his strengths, his deft touches have impressed and his assist for Anderson’s strike which doubled the lead on the night showed his intelligence as a striker.
Sadly after bagging the opener in United’s 8-2 demolition of Arsenal he went of injured just after the half-hour and probably (given the way Arsenal were defending) could have scored another goal or two himself had he stayed on. Thankfully he recovered from his hamstring injury earlier than expected and on his first start scored twice against Basel before coming of the bench at the weekend to seal a hard-fought victory over Norwich City.
It’s been good to see him come back to United this season and prove his doubters wrong. The fight for the 4-5 England striker spots for Euro 2012 is going to be a long-fought brawl the whole season. Wayne Rooney of course will be assured of his spot, but Jermain Defoe, Darren Bent, Gabriel Agbhonlahor, Andy Carroll, Danny Sturridge, Bobby Zamora and even Peter Crouch could all with Welbeck fight their way into Capello’s squad for next year’s finals.
Come the end of the season 3-4 of those strikers will miss out. Let’s just hope for Danny’s sake that he isn’t one of them.
Adam Dennehey @ADennehey87
