Louis van Gaal was typically blunt.
After Danny Welbeck’s two goals for England against Switzerland on Monday, there has been a temptation in some quarters to insist that Van Gaal made a terrible mistake and that Arsenal, for a fee of £16 million (Dh95.5m), have picked up the bargain of the season.
Other managers in Van Gaal’s position may have been contrite or ameliorative, but that is not the Manchester United manager’s way.
“I have given all the players a chance to convince me of their qualities,” he said. “Yes, Danny Welbeck was here from when he was nine. He has played, after Sunderland, three seasons at Manchester United but he doesn’t have the record of [Robin] Van Persie or [Wayne] Rooney and that is the standard. That is why we let him go – because of Falcao but also the youngsters who can fit in.”
It is a neat debunking of the sentimentality that often underscores discussion of Welbeck, of the local kid who supported United and worked his way up through the system to the first team.
Van Gaal is not a romantic. He does not care about the narrative. He does not care about United’s proud record – almost 80 years of never fielding a side without a product of their youth set-up.
He simply looks at a footballer and decides he is not good enough.
The former United defender Gary Neville, now an assistant to the England manager Roy Hodgson, has spoken forcefully about how strange he finds the sale.
“I can’t work it out,” Neville said. “After all the prices I’ve seen paid this summer and, obviously, I’ve been working with him the last week, I’m thinking: ‘How is it just £16m’?”
That has been portrayed as a condemnation of policy at Old Trafford, but really it is a difference of opinion about how good Welbeck is.
Van Gaal rated Welbeck behind Rooney, Van Persie – the Falcao purchase came after the decision to sell – and James Wilson, 18, who scored twice on his United debut last season, in a 3-1 win over Hull City.
If he was the fourth choice – now fifth choice – forward, in a squad that also includes Adnan Januzaj and Juan Mata, who can play behind a front man, then £16 million (Dh95.3m) does not look such a bad deal.
Van Gaal’s opinion of Welbeck presumably is low enough that he believes Arsenal have not improved themselves much.
Arsene Wenger almost certainly would not have signed Welbeck until the injury to Olivier Giroud. “Danny Welbeck is an ideal signing because he can play through the middle, which I think is his best position, but also through the flanks,” said Wenger.
“He works for the team, he brings pace and can score goals. He is happy and confident.”
In that sense, Welbeck reinforces Arsenal’s style. As Theo Walcott pointed out this week, the thought of Alexis Sanchez, Welbeck and himself together may leave opponents gasping to keep up.
The slight difference is that Welbeck is a more natural centre-forward than Walcott or Alexis, even if doubts remain over the quality of his finishing.
Wenger believes Welbeck is not a finished product. “I can make him a better player,” Arsenal’s manager said. “I can help. He is a young boy, not 24 yet. Some players who arrived at the age of 23 made huge careers here.”
Daniel Sturridge seems an obvious comparison: he had made just 48 Premier League starts before his move to Liverpool at 23, then exploded to become the highest scoring Englishman in the league last season.
Welbeck has made 53 Premier League starts for United (as well as 21 on loan at Sunderland); a new start, perhaps in his preferred position, could be, as it was for Sturridge, the making of him.
Opta, the football statistics company, have found that Welbeck and Sturridge have the same conversion rate over the past two seasons – 25 per cent; a remarkable statistic that suggests Welbeck’s misses are for some reason more memorable.
The reality is that if Welbeck were to develop further, he probably needed the move: pressing the reset button in itself can be a major step forward.
More than anything else, he needs to be playing and, whether Van Gaal is right or Wenger is, he should at least get games at Arsenal.
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