Patrick Rees
Former Manchester United striker Danny Welbeck has opened up on how he felt when he first entered the Manchester United dressing room, branding it as ‘a daunting experience’.
Born in Manchester, Welbeck was first spotted by the club as a 6-year-old and just two years later, he was picked by the club’s youth academy. Progressing through the club’s ranks, the striker made his Premier League debut in 2008, coming on as a substitute for midfielder Park Ji-Sung. The England striker asserted his authority in absolute style as he went on to score United’s fourth goal in a 5–0 win over Stoke City.
Two loan tenures with Preston North End and Sunderland followed before the striker established himself as a regular in the United first-team. However, soon after Alex Ferguson left, Welbeck fell out of favour in Louis van Gaal’s pecking order and despite scoring 10 goals in all competitions during the Dutchman’s debut season in Manchester, Danny was sold to Arsenal in 2014.
Coming through the ranks of Manchester United is never an easy task and when you are given the opportunity to share the dressing room with the likes of Ryan Giggs, Nemanja Vidic and Cristiano Ronaldo, nervousness is all but obvious.
Speaking about it in a recent interview on the Arsenal website, the striker relived the moment and said,
“When you get into the first-team dressing room, it’s a daunting experience. You’ve tried so hard to get into the first team or train with them. When I first got put into the first-team dressing room, I was between Giggsy and Ronaldo. You walk in and it’s like ‘woah, these are two top-class players’.
“Darren Fletcher was a massive help for me because he’d made that step up himself. Then you’ve got the Class of 92 – Giggs, Scholes, Neville, Gary Neville – plus Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Nemanja Vidic. You learn so much from these players. It’s not just how they are on the field, it’s how they are off the field as well.
“As you carry on training with the first team, you develop mentors. Each of the players, no matter if some of them aren’t that talkative or speak much English, you still learn from every one of them.”
A lot was expected of the Englishman when he made his move to Arsenal but a majority of his time has been hampered by constant injuries. He, however, got 82 minutes of action against Ostersunds last week and is also expected to get some minutes on Sunday when Arsenal face Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final.
