Time, distance and speed are inextricably linked in a tidy formula, but not when connected to Danny Welbeck’s transfer to Watford, which The Athletic can exclusively reveal is now confirmed after he signed his contract this lunchtime. It will be the shortest distance any player will have had to travel in this transfer window to move between two clubs, but it certainly has not been a speedy process. This equation took more than a year to solve.



Welbeck – who completed his medical yesterday has signed a three-year deal – will start the next chapter of his career just a few hundred yards down Bell Lane in London Colney, Hertfordshire. That’s the long route. A simple jump over a hedge would secure safe passage from Arsenal to Watford’s neighbouring training grounds.



The Hornets’ first approach came when the transfer window opened last summer as Welbeck entered the last year of his contract at the Emirates, having joined Arsenal from...