Natural born thriller

“He’s got a talent as good as anyone in the game. He’s confident, intelligent and he’s certainly got the technical skills. He has a great belief in himself.”

Natural born thriller

That’s the kind of glowing judgement any player at any level would be proud of; and Sir Alex Ferguson isn’t a man to give praise lightly or to get it wrong too often. So the most interesting thing to know about that particular quotation, made by the great man in 2011, is that the Manchester United manager isn’t referring to Wayne Rooney, or Javier Hernandez or Dimitar Berbatov. He’s talking about Danny Welbeck.

Welbeck, even after scoring his first goal for England in their Euro 2012 warm-up match against Belgium, doesn’t appear to be a name that gets too many fans excited or who gets the hands of headline-writers sweating in anticipation. But he could yet turn out to be the missing link that has eluded England for so long; the perfect foil for Rooney and an international-quality striker with the football intelligence to make Roy Hodgson’s side more than just a one-man team.

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