My two cents on Welbz. This is going to be a mess.
I'm sad to see him go, always is when someone's been at your club for so long. But that's football for you. I agree with my fellow fans that we shouldn't sell to our rivals. But I'm okay with it because he's not a starter, and it's where he wants to go, so I'm happy for him in that respect. £16m is a very fair price for you guys all things considered. He is young, English and we're you're rivals.
Now, on to the player. Let's start with the pros.
- Pace and power (according to every pundit last season, that apparently wins you the league)
- Young, still has potential
- Fits the mould for an Arsenal player
- Link-up play is ace
- His instinctive finishing is very good
- Excellent in tight spaces
- Works very hard, regularly nicks the ball high up the field
- He compliments your other players very well. His movement will be useful for Ozil. He stretches play which will benefit the likes of Alexis, Walcott and Ramsey.
- Can play in more than one position
The cons
- He's a pussy. Seriously the best way to describe his attacking play. One on one with the keeper, he can lose his bottle. He'll also regularly take the easy option when attacking. If for example you're two on two and he has the ball at his feet, he'd look to pass it to his team-mate rather than take the defender on. I guess you can say he needs more self belief. He needs to shoot more. This will frustrate you.
- His movement inside the box and general decision making can be extremely unintelligent. Something you probably haven't noticed but will slowly start to. This will frustrate you.
- He fluffs up a lot. With his finishing and dribbling. This will frustrate you.
- He will frustrate you, but that's part of what I meant by Arsenal mould too.
Definitely more positives than negatives, but the negatives are quite big and him being a pussy covers quite a bit.
Overall, I think he'll be a good signing and it'll be neck and neck between who your first choice #9 will be between Welbz and Giroud, when he's fit of course. If he starts every game as your #9, I'm pretty sure he'd average around a goal every two games or possibly better. But that may include a run of 8 goals in 8 games but then no goals in the next 5 games. Wenger is probably the right man to develop him into his peak and improve his confidence. I'm sure there's more to say but I'm going to bed now. All the best Danny.