Welbeck a match for class of '96

We don't yet know whether Danny Welbeck, the 17-year-old from Longsight who was 21 minutes into his Premier League career when he scored from 35 yards on Saturday, has what it takes to make the grade. But even the suggestion that he might do is enough for the Manchester United academy staff, who have been able to deliver precious few local boys of his ilk to the first team since the garlanded class of '96.

Academy director Brian McClair despairs of an academy system that has made old-fashioned scouting so much harder and has limited his successes to John O'Shea, Darren Fletcher and Wes Brown – whose father once gave Welbeck lifts to the same Fletcher Moss Rangers club where the England international defender played. But many football people reckon the laws of probability alone will deliver a local player to the top flight every 10 years, and so it might be with Welbeck.

Though being nine days short of his 18th birthday hardly makes him a prodigy of the proportions of Wayne Rooney – who was five days off 17 when he scored his wondergoal against Arsenal – he looks a prospect. He was sharp, if not deadly, on debut against Middlesbrough in the Carling Cup last month. His pace won the penalty that put away QPR when Carlos Tevez was labouring in midweek and his goal – taking the ball just beyond the centre circle, controlling it and exchanging passes with Angolan Manucho before unleashing a shot – was some achievement. Even as the gangling striker described the build-up to his 84th-minute shot, which dipped way beyond Thomas Sorensen, there was a symbolic reminder to McClair of those he had tried and failed with. "I knew [Ryan] Shawcross was coming behind me," he said of one of many United have sold. Stoke's Danny Higginbotham, another United graduate and Mancunian down to his bootstraps, was trailing in Welbeck's wake, too. "I was fortunate enough to play a few games here," he reflected on Saturday night. "But the thing about Sir Alex Ferguson is that if he decides you're not going to be a constant fixture in the team, he will always try to make sure that he can further your career." Higginbotham also returned here with a Derby side who lost 5-0 – a reminder of what football on the other side of the line from United can mean.

Welbeck almost overshadowed Cristiano Ronaldo who, as he kicks on from last season, is making the prospective £160,000-a-week wage demands United could face from his representatives look difficult to face down. He didn't play Premier League football until 21 September, remember, but he is its second top-scorer this morning and currently United's most compelling performer by a distance. He wasn't immune, in the course of taking his career goal tally from 99 to 101 with two more dipping free kicks, to the Stoke fans who threw abuse at him. The kisses he blew back and the leg he wiggled in time to their vitriol egged them on. But then he calmly dismembered right-back Andy Griffin's game and self-belief. That's not what you get from Rooney when the red mist descends.

If Stoke continue to defend like they did in the second half – the entire left wing was not so much an open door as a frame with the entire structure off its hinges – they will be relegated. How the same team have taken four points from Arsenal and Liverpool is unfathomable.

Dimitar Berbatov also capitalised, his second league goal helping to show why he was included, though those many who say he must be measured on goals because he doesn't run around much are plain wrong. Take a look at how many of Ronaldo's goals have been made by him, for a truer assessment of his contribution. With England's friendly safely out of the way, expect Rooney to be back at Villa Park next Saturday. The obstacles look formidable for Welbeck but he exudes the desire which, as most Premier League managers insist, British prospects have more of than foreign imports. "I'm quite level-headed and I take it in my stride," Welbeck said. "I just want more, really."

Goals: Ronaldo (2) 1-0; Carrick (45) 2-0; Berbatov (49) 3-0; Welbeck (84) 4-0; Ronaldo (89) 5-0.

Manchester United (4-2-3-1): Van der Sar; O'Shea, Vidic, Evans, Evra; Fletcher (Gibson, 63), Carrick; Park (Welbeck, 63), Tevez (Manucho, 75), Ronaldo; Berbatov. Substitutes not used: Anderson, Foster (gk), Nani, Da Silva.

Stoke City (4-4-1-1): Sorensen, Griffin (Wilkinson, 79), Shawcross, Abdoulaye Faye, Higginbotham; Amdy Faye, Diao, Olofinjana (Cresswell, 30) Delap; Sidibe; Fuller (Kitson, 69). Substitutes not used: Simonsen (gk), Cort, Whelan, Tonge.

Referee: P Walton (Northants).

Booked: Man Utd Evra Stoke Fuller, Delap.

Man of the match: Ronaldo.

Attendance: 75,369.