Welbeck Braced For Competition

Danny Welbeck is hoping United can party like it's 1999 if the signing of Robin van Persie completes arguably the strongest set of strikers seen at Old Trafford since that historic year.

Instead of fearing the renewed competition for places, the Mancunian forward insists he'd be happy to have last season's top Barclays Premier League goalscorer on board, believing it would give the club "a massive boost" and increase his team's chances of winning silverware.

"He's a player with great ability and a world-class striker," said Welbeck, when asked for his opinion on van Persie.

"He can score goals and create goals as well. They're the type of players who win you titles.

"It's always good to have competition - you never sit back at United where you always want to win every single game. Hopefully we'll sign him."

Van Persie's proposed move to join Welbeck, his England strike partner Wayne Rooney and Mexican hotshot Javier Hernandez has prompted some pundits to recall the 1998/99 season when Andy Cole, Teddy Sheringham, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Dwight Yorke competed for forward-line places and won the Treble together.

"That's the first I've heard of it [the comparison with 1999]," said Welbeck. "But I was a massive United fan then. I watched that whole season all the way through, topped off by the Champions League final and the celebrations. Cole, Yorke, Sheringham, Solskjaer... that was a great strike force.

"We've got a good variety of strikers at the club again now, capable of scoring goals in the Premier League and all of the competitions. We've also got Dimitar Berbatov, Kiko Macheda and Will Keane, who unfortunately got injured at the back end of last season. That was unlucky for him as We thought this season might be his chance to make his first-team breakthrough.

"With all these strikers we've got at the club it's a good problem for the manager to have."