Arsenal: Danny Welbeck solution kills two birds with one stone

Arsenal need help at leftback, and  they also need something to do with Danny Welbeck. So the solution is ready-made, albeit odd.

Arsenal haven’t even started the season yet and they already have an injury problem at a position that was supposed to be so snug that there was no way they couldn’t service the role. Yet as it stands, they may only have one option – Ainsley Maitland-Niles, and he isn’t even a leftback.

Sead Kolasinac is out for two months bare minimum, with the likelihood of it being longer. Nacho Monreal, too, is not at full fitness, not to mention he isn’t getting any younger.

As such, recent reports that Danny Welbeck has been training at left back aren’t that crazy. On the surface, it’s silly, yet very Wenger-esque. But when you go into the specifics of the situation, it’s much different than that.

Welbeck is perhaps the most athletic player that we have. And with the set-up of the attack being so narrow, and not reliant on wingers at all, more is asked of the fullbacks.

Hector Bellerin can handle it. He’s fast as hell and athletic as can be. Sead Kolasinac can handle it too, when he’s healthy. So can Maitland-Niles, but again, he isn’t a leftback, and his future at the midfield has to start sometime.

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If only we could find a spare, hyper-athletic player with strength and speed that is used to playing out wide.

Oh wait.

Danny Welbeck has already played on the wings, having failed to latch on at striker. He is right in his prime years and he’s never hit the heights that were expected of him at Manchester United. Yet, with the sale of Lucas Perez, Welbeck stays, and therefore has himself an opportunity to reinvent himself at a position that actually plays to a lot of his strengths.

There’s no guarantee that this will even amount to anything at all. In fact, it probably won’t. But if it can even alleviate the stresses of the position in the slightest, then suddenly we’ve killed two birds with one stone – we’ve found a practical use for Welbeck and we’ve fixed the problem at left back.

Hard to argue with those results. And seeing as how Welbeck isn’t going to be getting much playing time in the attack, I don’t see why he would be all that opposed to it either. The man wants to play.