More to come from Danny Welbeck in 2021-22
Welbz is Dat Guy. And the good news is that Danny Welbeck will be a Brighton & Hove Albion player again in 2021-22 after agreeing a new one year contract to remain at the Amex.
More than a few eyebrows were raised when the Seagulls swooped for Welbeck in October following his release by Watford. What were Brighton doing signing a striker who had suffered horrendously with injuries over the past three seasons and who had just been relegated from the top flight with the Hornets?
Turns out the answer to that question was pulling off a very shrewd deal indeed. Welbeck got himself fit and scored six important goals for the Albion in 2020-21 which went a long way towards keeping Brighton in the Premier League.
His first goal came in November’s 2-1 win at Aston Villa and involved running with the ball from inside his half before dinking over Emiliano Martinez.
No other player in Brighton’s squad would have been capable of such a cool and calculated finish, as a season littered with open goals missed from inside the six yard box attests to.
Welbeck’s 84th minute equaliser against 10-man Sheffield United saved Brighton from the considerable embarrassment of becoming the first opponents to lose to the Blades in the Premier League this season.
He won the penalty which gave Pascal Gross the chance to equalise in the 1-1 home draw with Liverpool and his perfect layoff sliced open the Southampton defence to create Leandro Trossard’s winner as Brighton won at St Mary’s for the first time since Gus Poyet’s He Who Must Not Be Named’s first game in charge 12 years earlier.
When Newcastle United were beaten 3-0 at the Amex, Welbeck again produced a quality finish when cutting in from the left wing and smashing past Martin Dubravka from outside the box.
A week later and Welbeck became the first former Manchester United player to score at Old Trafford against United on three different occasions.
He earned the penalty which allowed Pascal Gross to put Brighton 1-0 ahead at home to 1996 Coca Cola Cup runners up The Leeds United. Even better was to come when Welbeck doubled the advantage in the final 10 minutes with a strike good enough to be voted as the WAB 2020-21 Goal of the Season.
Dat Guy was on target 14 days later in the 1-1 draw with Champions League hopefuls West Ham United. His final contribution to the campaign came three days after that when cleverly drawing a last man foul from Joao Cancelo, ensuring the Manchester City defender was sent off and the champions had to play for 80 minutes at the Amex with only 10 men.
Welbeck limped off with just half an hour played against City, but his impact on that game cannot be underestimated given the stirring second half comeback which saw Brighton win 3-2 was largely down to the Citizens playing for so long shorthanded.
All of this is why Brighton were desperate to tie Welbeck down to a new deal. It is also why he had offers from several other Premier League clubs on the table, including Crystal Palace if the rumours are to be believed.
It seems likely that other clubs could have offered Welbeck more money than Brighton. There may have even been suitors out there willing to give him a longer deal than the one year contract Brighton put on the table.
Welbeck has probably accepted less money and less security to stay at the Amex for 2021-22. Really, that should not come as a surprise though.
For however good Welbeck was for the Albion last season, Brighton were good to him too. Nobody else was rushing to sign him when he departed Vicarage Road.
The Seagulls have worked hard to get him back to fitness. As a result, Welbeck played more matches in 2020-21 than he had in any season since 2017-18, a campaign which ended with him going to the World Cup with England. His six goal haul was his best since 2013-14.
In a day and age when footballers would sell their own grandmothers for a couple of extra grand, it is refreshing to see Welbeck opting instead to stay at a club who put faith in him and helped to get his career back on track.
The good news for the Albion is that there could be even more to come from Welbeck in 2021-22. He will get a proper pre-season under his belt this summer, allowing him to hit the ground running as soon as the Premier League campaign gets underway in August.
Four of Welbeck’s six goals came in his final nine appearances of the season. Once the ring rust was shaken with a run of starts, he really found his stride – helped by Graham Potter twigging how to get the best out of him.
That Newcastle game at the Amex was the first time Potter experimented with his W-M formation and split strikers. The threat Welbeck offered was instantly intensified by pushing him wider out to the left, as that scoring run is indicative of.
If Welbeck can replicate the form he has shown since Potter’s slight positional change over a 38 game Premier League season, Dat Guy would end up with 16 goals.
Even with his improved fitness, it is pretty unlikely that Welbeck would feature in every match throughout 2021-22. But say he manages 28 matches and scores at that run rate, he is still entering Glenn Murray territory of 14 for the season.
Now imagine if Brighton do what everyone can see they need to and go big on a clinical striker. Welbeck’s output has been decent partnering Neal Maupay who spent a lot of time post-Christmas out-of-form himself. How much might Dat Guy’s already decent scoring record improve alongside a better calibre of centre forward?
A tantalising thought. The relationship between Brighton and Danny Welbeck worked out better than anyone might have hoped last season. It could become even more profitable in the new campaign.
