Gary Neville insists veteran striker Danny Welbeck would be ‘perfect’ for Manchester United. The former England international shone for Brighton in their 3-0 victory over Chelsea last night.
Welbeck scored 29 goals in 142 appearances for United earlier in his career. He was ditched by Louis van Gaal in 2014 and had spells with Arsenal and Watford. He is still going strong at Brighton aged 34, scoring six times this season.
Neville believes Welbeck is good enough to be one of a number of forwards at United, just like how Liverpool have several attackers of varying abilities able to play across their front line.
“He was let go too quickly at United. If you think about Louis van Gaal, his style of play is very precise,” Neville told Sky Sports after Brighton beat Chelsea. “Now Danny Welbeck wasn’t precise in his game back then, so he (Van Gaal) just let him go. He didn’t fancy him at all.
“But he’s actually perfect for how Manchester United should play. Threatening space in behind, playing off front players. This idea that he’s not good enough for Manchester United is absolutely rubbish.
“He’s good enough to be in a pool of three or four strikers at Manchester United. For instance, Liverpool have three, four, five forward players across their forward line. They’re all of differing abilities and different types.
“Salah’s the stand-out one but you might move back to Gakpo and others who aren't quite as good as Salah - they all contribute at a certain point in the season. Divock Origi did it at Liverpool.
“I’ve seen Nicolas Jackson talked about at Chelsea last season as not being good enough [but] he is good enough to play at Chelsea, maybe if they had another striker up front to take the weight off his shoulders. He would be one of two very good strikers at the club.
“We always tag these players with, ‘Oh, he’s not good enough’, but he (Welbeck) is, to be part of a 20-man squad at a top club. He can still play at the top level, he’s destroying defences. He’s torn Colwill and Chalobah to shreds tonight. That front four, he was part of it - a big part of it.”
United are likely to sign a new centre-forward in the summer, having scored only 28 goals in 24 Premier League matches this season. Ruben Amorim’s side are 13th in the league.