DANNY WELBECK: There can be tears, leeches and yes men – but the love of playing drives me on and I have a desire to make up for lost time

Danny Welbeck scored his first FA Cup goal when he was 18 and his most recent, last month, when he was 34.

The first one came in only his fourth Manchester United game, at Southampton in January 2009. It was a header from a yard following a rebound.

As we watch it on old mobile phone footage, I suggest I could have scored it.

‘Yeah but would you have been in that position?’ he asks. It’s a fair point.

‘Look at that,’ Welbeck says. ‘It’s not even in HD. But I remember it. John O’Shea header saved and there I am. What a fantastic memory.’

United got to the semi-final that year only to lose to Everton at Wembley on penalties. Welbeck played but didn’t take one.

‘That would have been the gaffer’s decision,’ he smiles rather sheepishly.

Welbeck’s FA Cup association is largely positive, though.

He remembers sitting at his parents‘ home in Droylsden, Manchester, watching his team sweep Newcastle aside on the way to the treble in 1999. Welbeck was eight and already on United’s books.

He will never forget winning the competition twice with Arsenal in 2015, when he didn’t play in the final, and again in 2017, when he did.

And now we are here. Sitting in Brighton talking about hope and possibility ahead of a quarter-final tie with Nottingham Forest at the Amex this afternoon.

It is an FA Cup alive with possibility this season. Of the traditional modern big hitters, only Manchester City remain. Welbeck is excited and it’s partly because of him that Brighton are here. It was his goal – a deft chip over the goalkeeper – that won a sizzling tie at Newcastle a few weeks back.

‘I have amazing memories,’ nods Welbeck. ‘All these brilliant moments and experiences are something that you push for as a little kid.

‘The goal at Newcastle felt big. First touch wasn’t perfect but then a good finish. Not bad eh?’

Welbeck smiles the smile of a footballer entirely comfortable with who he is and what he has done. Home will always be the north and he still has the best Manchester accent in football.

But, despite the injuries and setbacks and struggles, this is not done for Welbeck yet, far from it. He runs his eye over the team that faced Southampton that day 16 years ago – Van der Sar, Neville, Vidic, Evans, O’Shea; Nani, Anderson, Carrick, Giggs; Berbatov, Welbeck – and reflects on early lessons learned.

‘You have the best kind of upbringing in that environment,’ Welbeck says.

‘To see how those players operated, how they are as people, how they interact with everybody, push each other to be the best they can be, was such an incredible learning curve.

‘It’s ingrained in me, you know. Always wanting more.’

Speaking on a Brighton club podcast earlier this season, Welbeck commented on how training has changed beyond recognition during his years in the game. Tactics and technical work are now king.

Some things haven’t changed though.

‘The importance of culture,’ he explains. ‘We have a good one here. But it can get very negative very quickly and you can end up in trouble.’

Brighton’s big test this season arrived just seven games ago and it was against today’s opponents. Fabian Hurzeler’s team lost 7-0 to Forest at the City Ground. A season seemed to hang in the balance and for Welbeck the mental images weren’t good.

‘There was a result for United against Man City at Old Trafford where we got smashed,’ he says.

The famous 6-1 of 2011?

‘Yeah I didn’t actually want to say the score out loud,’ he smiles. ‘I felt similar emotions that day. But I always recall what the manager said. “Remember this feeling… how much it hurts… and use it”.

‘When Sir Alex Ferguson says that you listen. So when it happened at Forest that was my message to the young boys here. Hold this feeling and never forget it.’

After that 2011 dismantling by their neighbours, United won their next five games and Hurzeler’s Brighton have responded similarly. In fact they won their next six.

‘It’s so easy on the back of a result like to let yourself nosedive and it’s credit to the boys that we stuck together,’ Welbeck adds.

‘We had this horrible result but I knew if we did dwell on it then it wouldn’t help us. We had to find a balance, to try to find a positive and then push on.

‘It was a humbling mentality that we adopted and that helped us. Maybe we needed it.

‘We have had moments this season when we have had good results and there has been a lot of talk about what position we could possibly get to.

‘But for us, it’s really important to only focus on the next game and that became really clear after Forest. I know the negative impact it has had on us in the past where we have been thinking too far ahead.

‘We have some incredible experience here and some incredible talent among the younger players. When we mix that together and find that really strong balance, it’s a really strong side.’

It would be wrong to say Welbeck’s career has gone by in a blur. There have been too many pauses and punctuations for that.

Injury has been an enemy and both knees have needed work. But these have proved to be commas. Never a full stop.

‘There 100 per cent have been some tears down the way,’ Welbeck nods.

‘It’s not easy you know? You can be in a great moment and then suddenly you are out for six months and your specialist is saying things about your career chances that you may not want to hear.

‘So, yeah, as soon as the operation is done you let out your emotions and then it’s go time.

‘A little cry and then: “Right, okay. What can I do now to put myself in the best position to get back?” That’s what I have always done.’

The Welbeck who sits here today is lean and strong and full of latent power. He is having his best season by way of Premier League goals in 11 years and is optimistic.

‘The love of playing drives me on,’ he says. ‘I am only 34 and I know that’s just a number any way. I feel fit and healthy. I have a desire to make up for lost time and improve.’

Welbeck signed a one-year contract when he arrived at Brighton from Watford in October 2020. Another 12-month deal followed a year later. Followed by two more but this time on two-year terms. His current deal runs until the summer of 2026 and he has actually played more games for Brighton than he has for any other club.

I ask him firstly if he has surprised himself and secondly where he has found the mental strength to keep going.

‘I wouldn’t say surprised but no I probably didn’t expect to be here five years on,’ he reflects. ‘Mental strength is… well I have read a few books that helped, but you also need to have that inner strength to be as good as you can.

‘After an injury to my left knee I remember sitting there thinking: “What can I do to really push on?”

‘I worked out I could be watching analysing games. Like really look and see what I can do in different situations.

‘Maybe some comes from my parents and I have two older brothers. As a kid I was fighting from a young age – not literally fighting – but fighting for approval and to make sure I was heard.

‘And you do that until the road stops don’t you? And it’s important to enjoy it. A smile is never promised.’

In the United dressing room, Welbeck sat between Ryan Giggs and Cristiano Ronaldo. Now it’s his turn, helping the young players to navigate things like the dangers lurking on social media platforms.

‘It’s very difficult for players not to get carried away,’ Welbeck says. ‘You have to differentiate between social media and real life and the reality of what happens here at the training ground.

‘Football is a hard graft and yeah the lads talk in the dressing room. I try and tell them that there may be players in that room who don’t get as much social media attention or praise but what they have actually done to help us win a game is huge.’

If Welbeck is happy to stand as a role model, he still has ones of his own.

‘James Milner is the oldest and the standards he sets every single day are amazing,’ he reveals. ‘What he does in and around the place is unreal. It’s amazing for young players to see.

‘You can’t be late for a start. What he does every day before and after training. What he eats. How he does his rehab.

‘See how many trophies he has won and he still has the determination to go harder than every single one us. If you are a young boy, he is gonna run you right until the end. I look up to him and he inspires me. It’s a privilege to be at the same club.’

As he poses for photographs, Welbeck talks about the previous night’s England game and wonders why Reece James didn’t celebrate his goal. ‘I would have,’ he grins.

England manager Thomas Tuchel says he has spoken to players on the fringes of selection but Welbeck – who won the last of his 42 caps in 2018 – says: ‘Nah I didn’t have any sort of contact.

‘I went away with the family and had a nice break, rested and recharged, and ready to go for the final push of the season. That’s the most important thing for me. Concentrate on what I can control.’

Recently his old team-mate Wayne Rooney suggested United should re-sign him but Welbeck – a father of two young girls – is not about to fall in to that headline.

‘For someone like Wazza to say something like that is nice,’ he says. ‘But it’s football and there will always be talk like that if I am doing well simply because it was my club.

‘The truth is that I love it here. I still have my old friends from school and they come to Brighton with their families and now our kids play together.

‘It’s important to have that close circle of friends, honest people.

‘With footballers it’s easy to have a lot of “yes men” around you, people who are gonna leech and say: “You are doing great” even when you may not be.

‘You need reality and real people in your life. My family are great and I have that network of real honest and humble friends and that’s super important.

‘And yeah they take the p*** always. About everything really! But it all goes back the same way.’

The Amex will be expectant on Saturday. Brighton have been close to an FA Cup final twice before recently, losing semi-finals against United on penalties two years ago and to City 1-0 in 2019. As the landscape of English football changes, a major final would perhaps be the most natural next step in Brighton’s development. 

As the landscape of English football changes, a major final would perhaps be the most natural next step of Brighton’s development.

This club has never won a major trophy and have only ever been to one cup final, back in 1983 when Gordon Smith had to score.

More basely on Saturday, may there be a smell of revenge in the air? A 7-0 is still a 7-0 after all.

‘It’s really good to be able to play them again given what happened,’ nods Welbeck.

‘Revenge? You can say revenge but we can’t put too much emphasis on that.

‘The most important thing is progressing and moving through this competition.

‘Let’s just leave it at that…’