Welbeck hopes to continue Rooney partnership

Danny Welbeck is hoping to partner Wayne Rooney up front for England after the pair’s good start to the season for Manchester United.

Welbeck is looking for a first international start against Montenegro on Friday after establishing himself in the Premier League champions’ first team, where he and Rooney have fired a combined 14 goals at the start of the campaign.

“I’m looking forward to it, they are exciting times to be involved in my first competitive game,” Welbeck said.

“He’s (Rooney) been on fire, scoring and creating goals. Just to be playing and training with him has been a bonus, hopefully I’ll learn from him and pick up as much as I can.”

“He’s a great guy to go to for advice, he’s always talking to you in training, it’s very beneficial.”

“We know each other’s games. It’s still early days, but we’ve been training for a number of years and it could work.”

Welbeck also insisted that England will be aiming to beat Montenegro despite only requiring a point to qualify for Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine.

He continued: “I don’t think it’d be right to go to Montenegro and play for a point. We’ll go there to win and I don’t see why we can’t do that.”

“Everyone’s going to be giving it their all, trying to make as much progress as they can. For the younger players pushing into the squad it’s a good incentive throughout the season.”

The youngster will be in familiar company in the England camp with three of his United team-mates also in the squad, although Rio Ferdinand is not one of them having failed to make the cut. However, Welbeck has backed his team-mate to prove people wrong.

“We all know what capabilities he (Ferdinand) got. He’s a great reader of the game – he’s a Rolls Royce defender. It’s wrong to write him off, he’s a great defender,” he said.

Welbeck also added his backing for England boss Fabio Capello, who has given youth a chance in recent international fixtures.

“(Capello) has stuck to what he said. There’s been quite a few of the younger ones coming through, Chris Smalling and Tom Cleverley, and we’ll keep trying to improve and keep trying to make that squad.”