Why Danny Welbeck has to go to the World Cup

‘Form is temporary, class is permanent’ is the sort of football cliché that usually gets wheeled out when a 33-year-old is wheezing through his final contract extension. Danny Welbeck, at 35, has instead decided to weaponise it.

Two goals against Liverpool at the weekend didn’t just secure a 2-1 win for Brighton; they shoved Welbeck directly into a conversation Thomas Tuchel can no longer pretend isn’t happening.

Because this is no longer a quirky, nice-story subplot. This is now a striker with 12 Premier League goals in 2025-26 – his best-ever top-flight return – and, crucially, the highest tally of any English player in the division this season.

At this point the question stops being “isn’t this lovely?” and becomes “what exactly are we doing here?”

Tuchel’s England squad currently exists in a strange, slightly panicked holding pattern behind Harry Kane. The alternatives range from Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s intermittent availability to Ollie Watkins’ hot-and-cold streaks to Dominic Solanke from a rapidly sinking Spurs team, or Marcus Rashford who prefers a wide role.

None are tearing down the door. None are inarguably better than a man scoring goals every other week in the Premier League right now.

Welbeck, meanwhile, is doing the unglamorous, deeply international-tournament-useful things. He presses, he runs channels, he links play, and – this is new – he finishes with the kind of ruthless efficiency that tends to get you on to planes.

There is also the minor detail that he has done it before. Not in theory, not in a youth tournament, not in a “he was in the squad but didn’t play” sense. Welbeck has played at major tournaments.

He has scored at them. He understands the peculiar rhythms of international football, where systems are simplified, space is tighter and the ability to do functional, intelligent striker things often outweighs raw talent.

Michael Regan - The FA/The FA via Getty Images

England have been here before, repeatedly. They have taken “form players” who don’t fit, or “project players” who might come good, or simply defaulted to the next name on a pre-written list.

And every time, when Kane inevitably needs a breather or something different, they end up looking around for someone who can just… play the role.

Welbeck can play the role. Right now, he might be the best in England at it.

"Welbeck obviously has the experience," Former England striker Bobby Zamora exclusively told DAZN News, thanks to Wildz Sports. 

"He's been to big clubs, big games, big occasions. I don't think it's going to worry him.

"He's got the experience.  I think he knows that everybody going there shouldn't think that they're going to be playing. I think he would know his role.

"I think everybody needs to know their role going into it, and Danny would know that. I'd go for that option."

Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

There is also something deliciously subversive about the idea. England, for all their attacking riches, have often lacked a player who knits things together selflessly in the final third.

Welbeck has made an entire career out of being the forward other forwards like playing with. Add goals – 12 and counting, including four in his last five games – and suddenly you have a profile Tuchel doesn’t really possess elsewhere.

Of course, there will be objections. Age, mostly. Nostalgia, possibly. The sense that international football should be about the future rather than the present. But World Cups are not development camps. They are short, brutal sprints where reliability, adaptability and experience tend to win out over theoretical upside.

And if we’re being brutally honest, England don’t need another maybe. They need someone who can be trusted.

Welbeck, improbably and undeniably, has made himself that someone. Take him.

 

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