England coach Roy Hodgson admits having a say in Danny Welbeck's move from Manchester United to Arsenal.

Wenger admits he only appreciated quite how good a player Welbeck was after seeing him close up every day in training.

Hodgson said: "Arsene and I speak more often than most managers as he always comes up to the directors' box at Arsenal and I speak to him very often. And we spoke of course before he signed Danny. I was singing Danny's praise so I'm delighted that Arsene has seen that my judgement wasn't wrong and that he shares that judgement.

"We like Danny very much. We've always shown faith in Danny. Many times he's been selected by me and my staff when he was not actually playing for Manchester United. Sometimes he's not even been on the bench and yet still we've selected him because we think he has the qualities required.

"And what Danny really needs is the faith of his manager, which he obviously has from Arsene, to get more games. And then I think we'll see more and more performances from him that we've been lucky enough to see with England and Arsenal were lucky enough to see the other night when he played at Monaco. I thought he was really, really good."