Danny Welbeck has been a moderate success since his £16 million move from Manchester United in the summer.

The absence of Olivier Giroud has meant that Welbeck has been the default choice for the striker’s role at Arsenal. This has seen him make 11 appearances in the league for the gunners. He recently scored his third league goal of the campaign in the 1-0 win over West Brom. Despite this, he was left out of the starting line-up against Stoke City. Arsenal endured another disappointing visit to the Britannia stadium after suffering a 3-2 defeat.

The absence of Welbeck in the first half was profound after Arsenal slipped to a 3-0 deficit at the half-time break. It was one of the poorest halves for Arsenal this season. However, they came close to getting an unlikely point and it was largely down to the performance of Welbeck, who was introduced as a half-time substitute. Even though the 24-year-old did not get on the scoresheet, his presence made it easier for the likes of Aaron Ramsey and Santi Cazorla to pull Arsenal within one goal of getting a point. Wenger revealed that tiredness was a reason for putting Welbeck on the bench against Stoke.

The defeat brought an end to a run of three consecutive victories for the gunners."Danny has played a lot, he had a little groin problem. He could have played. I rotated a little bit because I wanted to give him a breather.I had to respond at half-time unfortunately and it looked like he was alright. We have three or four strikers from game to game and not everybody can play. As Alexis has played every game, he has to dig deep in every game. At some stage you have to rest the players,” said Wenger, whose team are now sixth in the table.