Manchester United’s most ineffective player revealed

Football statistics website analyse the Premier League form of Danny Welbeck. To see which players made their '' of 2012/13, …

Danny Welbeck, part of the 'bright' future of English football, has had a distinctly unspectacular season that has somehow managed to slip under the radar in most corners.

Once again, he has made it into the England squad for the friendlies with Republic of Ireland and Brazil, in spite of the fact that his only goals in their 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign came at home to San Marino, while he has also only managed two goals for Manchester United all season.

Of those, only one was in the Premier League, despite making 27 appearances in attacking roles for the top scoring team and eventual champions, and having had 39 attempts on goal, he has been one of the most wasteful players in the top flight this season, thus making it into  for the season ( to see which other players made the XI). 

Welbeck's conversion rate of 2.6% over the season past is the worst of any Premier League player who managed to score. He did, at least, manage to score once, meaning he wasn't quite as poor as Reading's Jobi McAnuff, who failed to net with any of his 43 attempts on goal. However, McAnuff did so for one of the lowest scoring sides in the league, and his role as a left midfielder would often have seen him helping out defensively to a greater extent than Welbeck.

This is not to overly undermine Welbeck's ability. As can be seen on  for 2011/12 () the forward scored nine goals from 80 shots. A conversion rate of 11.3% last season was impressive in itself and sufficient to prove that he is capable of scoring at a decent rate at the top level. But he has gone off the boil this term, his only strike coming in nearly 22 hours on the pitch.

Of course, much of the goalscoring burden at Old Trafford has been shouldered by Robin van Persie since his arrival last summer, but for a player with the attacking tendencies of Welbeck to have wracked up half as many goals in 27 appearances as reserve left-back Alexander Buttner did in five is rather worrying. 

Van Persie becoming the Red Devils' main goalscorer has been a contributory factor in Welbeck's decline, particularly in terms of his importance to United's attacks. While he was having a shot every 25 minutes in the 2011/12 Premier League season, he attempted one every 33 minutes in 2012/13. Given that he has almost exclusively been playing in a deeper role this season, one might expect that he would be restricted to chances from deeper positions, too. However, having had 82.5% of his shots in 2011/12 from inside the area, he has had 82.1% from close range this term. His chances have generally come from the same distance from goal, but while he was hitting the target 42.5% of the time last term, he has done so with only 23.1% of his shots in 2012/13.

Confidence is a huge thing for strikers on a stage as big as the Premier League and it has clearly been an issue for Welbeck this season. When goals are hard to come by, playing in front of pumped up crowds, ready to pounce on your every wrongdoing, is one of the last things a striker wants; just ask Fernando Torres. To be fair to Welbeck, he has persisted and continued to work hard for the cause, as many would expect him to. His goal at the Bernabeu in the Champions League provided a little reward for his efforts, to add to the not so insignificant matter of a Premier League winner's medal. However, after an indifferent season on a personal level, Welbeck needs to step it up again next season if he is to retain his regular spot in both the Manchester United and England squad.

To see who else made WhoScored.com's Most Ineffective XI for the Premier League 2012/13 season, -