Look, I'm sure he can be a solid player for us, if he plays up front anyway (on the wing I think he could be another gervinho)
But one of the things that I used to back Wenger to the hilt with was the fact that he made cost effective decisions with his transfers, (i.e. profit risk etc.)
Best case scenario I can see is that Welbeck plays like a 20 million player, and justifies his price tag (which again, if he plays up front he's got a chance of doing so).
However, worst case, he plays like the 8 million bog standard player that we're so used to seeing, and is a complete flop (remember, he's not young anymore either)
Now, imagine if we got Balotelli....Okay, he's a ****ing nutter, but we'd always have buyers for him if it didn't work out (and probably recoup a vast majority of our outlay).
But if Wenger was able to work his magic on him, we would have a 40 million, world class player on our hands.
Are you seriously trying to tell me that going for Welbeck was the better option? Of course not, until Giroud was injured there's no way in hell we would have gone in for him. His injury, combined with Sanogo being reminiscent of adebayor before he got good (i.e. big, quick, strong, makes the right runs but utter pony technically), forced his hand.
It was a complete lack of foresight that led to us signing Welbeck for this inflated price, and I am really starting to question Wenger's methods now.
Fingers crossed Welbeck proves me wrong and makes me look a muppet, but I can't really see it happening