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What Will Danny Welbeck offer Arsenal?

So after a summer of rumours about who would be Arsenal’s new striker, Arsene Wenger did what is becoming annual in this transfer window and left it until the last minute. The Frenchman managed to bring in a new striker in the form of Danny Welbeck from rivals Manchester United for £16m.

Welbeck Arsenal

Danny Welbeck receives a lot of criticism for his lack of goals and often rushed finishing, if he is to gain the acceptance with Arsenal fans he will need to improve this area of his game. Last season was his joint best tally of his career with 9 goals and he will need to get more than this if Arsenal are going to challenge for the title with Giroud ruled out until the end of the calendar year.

Despite the low number of goals though, Welbeck had a conversion rate of 25% – which was better than new team mate Giroud (18.2%), plus Arsenal’s reported signings Remy (21.5%) and Balotelli (13.3%) – suggesting that the England striker needs to be more selfish in his game, Welbeck only averaged 1.8 shots per match, or suffers from a lack of confidence in front of goal.

What Welbeck will offer Arsenal is someone with pace to break past the opposition defence – something that is shortly lacking with Giroud and Sanogo up front and has caused them difficultly when faced with deep lying defences.

Welbeck is also extremely good at holding up the ball and supplying team mates in wide areas before making a late unmarked run into the box – a move that could work to devastating effect with Sanchez, Walcott and Oxlaide-Chamberlain being able to beat most full backs in the league with their lightening quick pace. With this in mind, the false 9 tactic that Wenger has tried with Sanchez would be suited to his newest signing due to Welbeck’s liking for dropping deep to collect the ball.

An average passing accuracy of 87.6% during his time at Manchester United shows that Welbeck  puts the team before personal glory the majority of the time, keeping possession by playing the ball to the midfield to gain advantage of the space opened up by the defender following the striker and being out of position. That’s not to suggest he never tries something more adventurous, showing off with fancy flicks – the most high profile occurrence was his goal in Euro 2012 – that presents the technical ability that can be further refined by Wenger over the course of the next 12 months.

A work rate that helps his midfielders when defending or pressuring opposition defences when on the ball, Arsenal’s issues with allowing opponents to have possession during key periods – especially against rival teams – could be different this season with Welbeck and Sanchez.

While Welbeck might not be the prolific goal scorer that Arsenal fans have been crying out for since the departure of Robin Van Persie, he does offer an outlet up front that not only suits the system Arsene Wenger wants to play but qualities that Arsenal strikers haven’t had for a number of years.

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