Can Welbeck recapture his old swagger?
HE HAS lost confidence, no longer has faith in his own body and one thing is for sure, he is no Harry Kane.
Nevertheless, Arsene Wenger retains his faith in “useful” Danny Welbeck and wants to extend his contract beyond the end of next season at the earliest opportunity.
Moreover, he wants the Arsenal striker to use close friend and team-mate Jack Wilshere as his inspiration as he continues his rehabilitation from a series of injuries and attempts to get back to the top of his game.
Three years ago, Welbeck was the man Roy Hodgson was pinning his Euro 2016 hopes on. After his destructive double in Berne in September 2014 got England off to an incredible start, the Arsenal player scored his sixth goal in five qualifiers against Lithuania the following March.
It was the same game in which Kane finally made his senior debut and since then Welbeck has seen just 91 more minutes of action for his country.
A knee operation ruled him out for 10 months and after just four months back he was facing another nine months on the sidelines.
Even then, a hip injury which gave way to a groin strain held him back at the start of this campaign and it is only tonight against lowly Ostersunds that he gets a chance to press his claims, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang cup-tied and Alexandre Lacazette injured.
But then Wenger makes no bones about it: Welbeck is not the player he once was.
“I would not disagree with you on that,” said Wenger. “There was a time when I remember he played for England in Switzerland and he (3-4-3) looked absolutely marvellous. He is a player we all want and would like to come back.
“I see signs of him now in training where he is like that period. It’s difficult to imagine a guy who has basically been one and a half years out. At 25 years of age, that’s absolutely traumatic. He had knee problems on both sides. When you are a football player it is very difficult to accept. Do you lose faith in your body? Of course.
“Even with a muscular injury you lose it quickly. One of the advantages of being young is that you feel indestructible.
“It gives you an arrogance. But as soon as your arrogance is hit, you are lost. Sometimes the players are very confident, very arrogant but as soon as they lose that belief in their body, you don’t know what is going on.” It seemed for months that Wilshere was in the same situation and yet, buoyed by his Europa League performances, he is now back in the England reckoning.
“Jack was certainly an inspiration,” said Wenger. “The pair are very close to each other.”
Wenger believes that Welbeck should not give up on his international future.
“He might not be a goalscorer like Harry Kane but for England he can perfectly play with Kane because he plays on the flanks,” said Wenger. “He is a useful player, first of all because of his quality.
“I want to keep him because I believe he has gone through a torrid time. If he can stay on the pitch and not be injured, I want him to stay here.” OSPINA; CHAMBERS, MERTESACKER, HOLDING; MAITLAND-NILES, ELNENY, WILLOCK, KOLASINAC; MKHITARYAN, WELBECK, IWOBI. (4-3-3) KEITA; BERGQQVIST, PAPAGIANNOPOULOS, PETTERSON, WIDGREN; TEKIE, NOURI, MENSAH; SEMA, GHODDOS, GERO. REF: I Kruzliak (Slo). TV: BT Sport 2. KICK-OFF: 8.05pm.