Between 2011 and 2015, he progressed from promising youngster to trophy-winning player and England regular, experiencing an awful lot in a relatively short period of time. Since then, Welbeck’s career has lost its milestones and its markers. He had always been kept slightly in the shadows, but a step back from there took him into total darkness. A career has thus ebbed away at double speed.
Welbeck’s career is easily split into two: the roll of honour and the experience. He was in Manchester United’s first-team squad when they won three Premier League titles, but started only 14 matches across all three. He has won two FA Cups, but started only five games in both runs combined. He has won the Champions League, but didn’t play a minute in the competition that season. He has felt eternally useful to England, but has not started a competitive game for almost three years. Welbeck has started more than 20 league games in a season twice in his career, and never scored ten league goals. He has managed fewer than 120 Premier League starts in his entire career.
Therein lies the Welbeck Paradox. Footballers are often defined by their honours, but silverware without responsibility is nothing. Nobody can truly be sated by success unless they have had an integral part in its achievement. Others might remember your trophies, but you remember your moments.
Now Welbeck is Arsenal’s Europa League forward, or at least until the competition gets serious enough for the first-teamers to step in. It’s the role that few want and none truly clamour for. There is a huge difference between being a squad player at your hometown club and one hundreds of miles south. The boy from Longsight is a long way from home. Welbeck grew up on Markfield Avenue, less than three miles from Old Trafford.
