Ben White hammered by Sky pundits but bounced back to earn an England call-up

If Arsenal’s Premier League season has been one of gentle and necessary improvement than maybe their central defender Ben White has mirrored it.

The 24-year-old joined Arsenal from Brighton for £50million at the start of the season. Expectations were high, but early on his performances didn’t match them. After an opening Premier League defeat at Brentford, White was picked out for criticism by Sky Sports pundits Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher.

‘I saw it and I think it was the first time I’ve been singled out,’ White said on Thursday night. ‘It’s never a nice feeling but it gave me more incentive to go out there and do well. The fact is that some of the stuff they said was true.

‘I don’t think I needed anyone to tell me. I’m a big boy. I’ve had criticism the full way through my career. It wasn’t my best game and the start of the season wasn’t good as a whole. It was tough.

‘I didn’t play very well against Brentford and then I got Covid so I was out for another two games.

‘It was hard to get started and it wasn’t what I wanted but, coming through the season now, I’m playing every week, the team is doing really well and it’s very positive from here.’

With Arsenal in the Champions League places after a good run of form, White is back in the England squad and will hope to win his third cap against Switzerland at Wembley on Saturday.

Much has happened in the young defender’s career already. He was released from Southampton as a teenager and wondered whether he would make it as a footballer at all. Then, on loan from Brighton at Newport County in League Two, he witnessed the other side of the professional game.

‘It was one of the best years of my life,’ he reflected. ‘I’d gone from playing in an academy where everything is nice and you have everything you want. Then you go there and everything is completely different. You’re having a curry for your pre-match meal!

‘In my first game there was a punch-up at half-time, between our own players in our own dressing room. It was a bit scary to be fair. I didn’t want to make any mistakes that’s for sure.

‘When you go and play in those leagues, you see what you should be doing and probably stuff you shouldn’t be doing to get to the next level.’

White’s future at club level appears to be settled now. The next step will be to win a regular England place. But he is unlikely to forget his formative years.

‘I wasn’t good enough when I was younger,’ said White. ‘I was a late developer. I was probably as tall as I am now but really skinny, gangly, couldn’t really run. And I didn’t play at all when I was a kid at Southampton. There were always people playing in front of me. I’d get 10 minutes here and there and that’s not enough to be able to show what you’ve got.

‘After I left Southampton I went to Bristol Rovers on trial for three days. I only did two days because we were literally just running up hills. Didn’t get a football out at all. Absolutely killed me, couldn’t do it.

‘Then I got a trial at Leicester. Went there, they didn’t offer me anything. It was all at right back so I hadn’t even played at centre half at this point. Then I went to Brighton for a trial against Brentford and that was when I first started playing centre back. They took me on a scholarship.’

White remains on the fringes in terms of selection for the World Cup in November but feels that he is making progress under Mikel Arteta at Arsenal.

‘Getting called up again is really nice,’ he said. ‘It shows that what I’ve done this season is paying off. I didn’t really have any expectations. I was at a new club and I wanted to start off well and that didn’t happen. So I’ve been taking it by game by game and playing as well as I can.

‘Everyone gets knockbacks in football. Some people can fall and not ever recover. But as long as my family are safe and healthy, that is much bigger than not playing so well at the weekend.’