‘I tried not to have favourites at Man United but one player always stood out – it was a mistake to sell him’

Brighton and Hove Albion striker Danny Welbeck returns to Old Trafford on Saturday to take on Manchester United

Welbeck left United in 2014

Aged 23, Danny Welbeck made the summer deadline day move to Arsenal from Manchester United.

When he returned to Old Trafford as an Arsenal player for the first time, Welbeck scored to show Louis van Gaal why he was wrong to let him go. Ironically, as the years have progressed, the decision to sell the academy graduate has looked even more of a mistake.

Ahead of United’s clash with Brighton, MEN Sport spoke to one of the academy coaches who played a pivotal role in Welbeck’s development.

“I was the director of the centre of excellence,” Paul McGuinness explains when asked about the first time Welbeck appeared on his radar. “In those days it was not as big as all the academies now, we had just started having teams so the organisation wasn’t as big but my role was in charge of all the schoolboy players, Under-9s to Under-16s.

“That is when Danny came in at the age of eight or nine. Straightaway he stood out, he stood out for lots of reasons – his footballing ability, his personality, his athleticism and his whole sort of character, really.

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“He lit the place up, he was always a really positive person, very positive player and that persisted through all of the age groups.”

McGuinness admitted that it was never easy to spot which players would make it and which wouldn’t. But through his 23 years with the United youth set-up, he did manage to find a common theme.

“You can’t be sure of anything but some of the consistent things that all the best players have, not all of them but some of them, is a good family behind them,” he explained. “His family were incredibly supportive.

“His parents came from Ghana, his mum was a nurse or a carer and his dad was also in the care business, and they were very supportive but also left us to get on with it. They backed us on anything they did and they were backing Danny all the time, bringing him to training and supporting him but they were not these pushy parents who were always shouting for their lad, they were quiet in the background and they let him get on with it and that was a very important part of his development.

“You would speak to them at the parents’ evenings and they basically said: ‘Well, you’re the experts, you deal with it.’ Having said that, there was never much of a problem because he was always conscientious, always working hard.”

Welbeck’s talents ensured he was always punching above his weight in terms of the age groups. As a schoolboy, he scored the winner as United beat Arsenal in the FA Youth Cup semi-final and McGuinness remembers being one of Welbeck’s biggest fans.

Danny Welbeck celebrates

“People always ask me, who is your favourite player? A coach will always say that I don’t have my favourites but I have to be honest, Danny was always my favourite in the sense that I was the coach from Under-9s to Under-16s but because we didn’t have all full-time staff in, I would coach some of the sessions at every age group. I coached him at every age group up to Under-16s.

“At that point, I moved to be the Under-18s coach and I picked him for the Under-18s as well because he was that good a schoolboy player so he was playing in the Under-18s and youth team when he was a schoolboy. The manager [Sir Alex Ferguson] noticed him playing in those games [in the Youth Cup] and we would be talking about him and he would go training with the first team.

“I remember pushing for him to take Danny with the first team but he didn’t and I was a little bit frustrated as I thought he could have been in a little bit earlier. I remember he won the Young Player of the Year award and I said he is not afraid of the crowds or the manager and all the first team went ‘ooo’, and I thought I had dropped him in it there but what I meant was that he was not afraid of having a chat with him [Ferguson].

“He had a fantastic progression through the ranks. At Under-16s, Les Kershaw (former chief scout and academy director) used to do a form when we were choosing who to pick to move on.

“A, B, C, D – who is an A category who could be first team and so on. In all the years we did it, I think Danny was the only one who got all As from all the staff.

“That shows not only his ability but his personality and when I see him on TV or I see him playing for Brighton, I just think that manager is so lucky to have him in his squad.”

With such glowing reviews from the United academy, it was difficult to see why any United manager would want to sell him, but in 2014 he was on his way out of the club.

Fabian Hurzeler embraces Danny Welbeck

“Danny Welbeck had been here since he was nine, but after he came back from Sunderland, he does not have the record of [Wayne] Rooney or [Robin] Van Persie, and that is the standard,” Van Gaal told reporters. “And we have [Radamel] Falcao. Today, in training, he had one chance and it is a goal – that is why we had to let him go.”

Falcao went on to score just four goals in 29 appearances for the Reds and McGuinness believes that assessment of Welbeck was short-sighted.

“He will be helping the young lads [at Brighton], making it good fun in the dressing room but he will also be demanding high standards on the pitch and leading by example,” McGuinness explained.

“That is him and that is the reason why they should not have let him go at any point. He also had a real love of Man United growing up and I think one or two of the managers who came in miscalculated the importance of him or a Jonny Evans.

“To be fair, some of the strikers that United have had since him, some of them have been past their best – Falcao, Wout Weghorst, even a Zlatan Ibrahimovic and others who came. When you look now, in the years since then, if he was about with [Paul] Pogba, [Jesse] Lingard or a [Marcus] Rashford, I think he would have been like a senior player who would have put his arm around them or reminded them what was required and helped them through what was a difficult patch.

“Him and Jonny Evans, growing up seeing them at United, they would have had that influence. Different managers come in and have different players they want to bring in themselves.

“A core of homegrown players at any club, but particularly at Manchester United, would be a prerequisite for success really.”

Since departing United, Welbeck has scored five goals against the Reds and heads into the clash on Saturday in good spirits thanks to a brace against Newcastle last time out.

Louis van Gaal watches Danny Welbeck warm up

Now 34, Welbeck is proving he can still cut it in the Premier League and it has left McGuinness questioning why some have turned their back on the old philosophies of United.

“It is a little surprise to me sometimes when people say that we need a new identity from the one where they had four world-class strikers – but that seemed a very good identity, didn’t it?” he said.

“[Dwight] Yorke, [Andy] Cole, [Teddy] Sheringham and [Ole Gunnar] Solskjaer. Then it was [Dimitar] Berbatov, [Cristiano] Ronaldo, -Wayne] Rooney and [Carlos] Tevez. When I was playing at Man United, I was in the reserves, but it would be two of [Frank] Stapleton, [Mark] Hughes, [Alan] Brazil and [Norman] Whiteside – two would be in the first team and two would be in the reserves.

“I played with all of those players as a youngster and I think that is part of the formula for success, to have a number of strikers. Your strikers have to be fresh and you can imagine how it felt for the opposition when Yorke and Cole went off after 70 minutes but two fresh players like Sheringham and Solskjaer came on.

“That is a nice thing to have and I am sure Danny would have been delighted to be part of that and play a role as a striker in a squad for Manchester United.”

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