OPINION
Newcastle United must start laying the groundwork now in order to steam ahead in the race to sign Arsenal forward Danny Welbeck.
The Daily Mirror reported on Tuesday that the 27-year-old centre-forward was set to follow teammate Aaron Ramsey out of the doors at the Emirates next summer on a free transfer as there was no new deal in sight for him.
The newspaper claimed that Welbeck was in the final year of his deal and could sign a pre-contract with an overseas club on January 1st in order to resolve his uncertain future.
This means that the Magpies must start plotting their move for the forward now as not only would their squad benefit from him, he is no doubt going to be swarmed with offers due to being a bargain next summer.
It’s rare that a player of Welbeck’s quality, let one with his Premier League experience, appears on the transfer market available for free so he is no doubt going to have several clubs scrambling for his services due to his bargain price tag if opts to leave the Gunners.
The Gunners attacker has scored four goals in seven appearances across all competitions this season and looks to be proving that he is a very capable player in the division.
Welbeck, who has scored 42 Premier League goals in his career, would be able to solve Rafa Benitez’s side problems in front of goal for many seasons to come as he is hitting the age where he should be at his peak.
Also the attacker is very versatile as he has shown in his career that he can be deployed as a winger and that will surely be an enticing prospect for the Magpies boss.
While it’s up in the air whether Benitez will be at the club beyond this summer himself, if he knew that players of Welbeck’s calibre were guaranteed to be arriving, especially after a decent January window, then he no doubt would pen a new deal to stay at the club.
TEAMTalk reported in the summer that Benitez wanted to borrow the services of the Arsenal forward so it would no doubt please him if the Magpies showed at this early stage that they were plotting a move.
Therefore this all means that Newcastle must lay down some groundwork now in order to sign up Welbeck as he is set to be a summer bargain, that they would be foolish to miss out on.
