Arsenal: Danny Welbeck Still Bridging Hype With Performance

Arsenal were thrilled to welcome Danny Welbeck back into the mix, but now the problem with the Englishman is finding the right direction.

Arsenal were definitely left a tad devastated when Danny Welbeck succumbed to the bone bruise from hell that kept him out for nearly a year. After springing the Gunners to a monumental win over to-be Champion Leicester City, the Englishman went down and has only just returned.

While he was gone, the hype built up, almost like it had in the beginning when he first signed. In the absence of a hero, Gooners turned to a man that didn’t seem to have any weaknesses. They wanted to see him come back like a lion and conquer the Premier League.

Which is a bit high to set the bar. Welbeck has all of the raw talent in the world and when he is truly on, there are few players more inspiring to see, but the problem with Welbeck has always been bridging this gap between what is expected of him and what he actually provides consistently.

At his boyhood club of Manchester United, he was destined to be the next big striker, but after being shoved out wide one too many times, he was sold to Arsenal in a move that Darren Fletcher has claimed “should have never happened.”

Since that time though, he has failed to mount any sustained challenge to either Olivier Giroud or, this year, to Alexis Sanchez. And that isn’t entirely his fault, as Arsene Wenger is tougher to please than the Spanish Inquisition, but some of it does fall on Welbeck.

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The problem stems from the unreachable level of hype that gets placed on him in each and every absence. When he isn’t playing, everyone just knows that when he returns, he will be the solution. But when he is playing, he can be a tad underwhelming.

Bridging that gap is the primary goal in his development, but with a cluttered striking corps at Arsenal, it won’t be an easy bridge to build and it will be one that he will have to make massive progress at with each opportunity.

West Brom was the biggest opportunity this year for him to build massive credit and, like the rest of the team, he was ineffective and didn’t amount to much of anything.

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I don’t want to sound like a Negative Nancy, but we need to see more from Welbeck than what we have seen in the past. After his amazing performance against Southampton, the bar was reached, but since then he’s been grasping at air and he’s too good for that.

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