Wayne Rooney has said he wanted Manchester United to bring Danny Welbeck back to the club while they sought a striker in recent transfer windows. Welbeck\u2019s revival at Brighton & Hove Albion, following earlier injury problems, has provided the former United forward with compelling evidence.<\/p>\n
After recovering from his injury issues, Welbeck scored 10 Premier League goals for Brighton in 2024\u201325, the best league tally of his career, and has started 2025\u201326 by scoring six times in 10 league games. His birthday later this month will be his 35th.<\/p>\n
Rooney discussed Welbeck on his BBC podcast, The Wayne Rooney Show. \u201cI\u2019m stoked, he\u2019s been on fire,\u201d he said. \u201cI absolutely love Daniel, I love him.\u201d Rooney saw Welbeck\u2019s emergence as a teenager in 2008 and played alongside him for five full seasons until Welbeck\u2019s surprising 2014 transfer to Arsenal.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been such a good player in the Premier League. Manchester United should have brought him back because he scores goals and he works hard,\u201d Rooney continued. \u201cI think over the last couple of years I would have really have liked to have him back. I think now United are going a different way and have hopefully turned a corner. But I would have wanted him back over the last few years. He seems settled at Brighton so I just hope he keeps scoring goals and hopefully gives himself the best chance possible to get back in the England squad.\u201d<\/p>\n
United were aware of Welbeck\u2019s form. According to The Athletic, he was a tentative target in the summer of 2024 with interest driven primarily by former manager Erik ten Hag. No offer materialised because the club was unwilling to commit to one of the Dutchman\u2019s targets while his job was uncertain. Welbeck then signed a new two-year deal at Brighton, a decision that left Rooney disappointed.<\/p>\n
The wider context was United\u2019s well-documented struggle in 2024\u201325. H\u00f8jlund began that season injured and later suffered from a loss of confidence. Zirkzee scored a winning goal on his Premier League debut but needed time to adapt. Limited striker depth and a lack of goals were cited as primary reasons for the club\u2019s worst league finish in 51 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rooney: United missed chance to re-sign Danny Welbeck as he rediscovers form at Brighton in 2025\/26<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[773,1083,1125,1163],"tags":[1225,1226],"class_list":["post-4244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brighton-hove-albion","category-man-utd","category-strikers","category-transfers","tag-danny-welbeck","tag-striker-form"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}