What has happened to Ben White? Defender is under contract at Arsenal through to 2028 but meagre playing time has raised delicate questions over his future at the club
With Ben White, the public perception has rarely matched the reality. Away from the Arsenal bubble, there is an image of White as a player who is indifferent to his craft, who chose against playing for England and who has openly said he does not watch much football. Outsiders have questioned how much White really cares.
The truth, though, is that White is one of the most driven and competitive players in the Arsenal squad. If anything, it could be argued that he cares too much. He may not consume football when he is away from the training ground, but he commits to it in totality when he is in the gym or on the pitch. At times, this has been to his own detriment – and it could be argued that he is now paying the price for it this season.
For much of the past four years, White’s resilience along with his technical ability has made him one of the most important players in Arteta’s squad, and one of the first names on the team sheet. In his first three seasons as an Arsenal player, following his £50m move from Brighton in 2021, White played in 87 per cent of the club’s minutes in the Premier League.
It was the same before he joined Arsenal. White played in 36 of 38 league games for Brighton in 2020-21, having started 46 out of 46 matches on loan at Leeds United in the Championship the previous season. For the majority of his senior career, White has almost always been available. And his quality as a footballer means he has therefore almost always played.
It must be a strange and uncomfortable feeling for White, then, to now be on the fringes of Arteta’s lineup. Once a nailed-on starter, the 28-year-old has spent much of this season on the bench. He has started only four matches in all competitions, and only once in the Premier League. In the last eight league games, he has been an unused substitute.
There is an obvious reason for this shift: the fabulous performances of Jurrien Timber. The Dutchman has been in remarkable form for Arsenal this season, offering a blend of technical skill, defensive diligence and pitbull-like aggression from right-back. Timber snaps into tackles with an intensity that no other Arsenal player can match.
It is difficult, though, not to feel some sympathy for White as he looks in from the outside. This is a player who has consistently put his body on the line for the club, pushing himself to his physical limits while the other players in his position have been out with injuries.
When Timber missed the 2023-24 season with a knee injury, for example, White made 51 appearances in all competitions. Takehiro Tomiyasu, Arsenal’s other right-back option before his departure in the summer, also missed long periods due to repeated fitness problems.
The physical burden on White has been significant, and perhaps exacerbated by his own mentality. White has been so determined to play that he has, Arteta has said, concealed fitness problems from the coaching and medical staff. “He is not going to ever tell you that he is not fit,” Arteta said of White last year.
A year earlier, Arteta revealed that the club’s physios and medical staff had pulled White out of a game for his own good. “In training he was not comfortable, he didn’t look right,” said Arteta in 2023. “But Ben won’t give you much, he always wants to be on the pitch and always wants to hide anything that is in there.”
It ultimately reached a stage, in November last year, that the club decided to send White for knee surgery. “We know that Ben is going to push every boundary,” Arteta said at the time. “But it got to a point where we had to protect him and we decided to do the surgery.”
It all raises delicate questions of White’s future, especially given Arsenal’s need to make sales after a summer of extraordinarily heavy investment. At the end of this season he will have two years remaining on the contract: the point, usually, at which a club makes a decision to either extend the player’s deal or look for buyers. Right now, all options appear to be open to Arsenal and White.
Only a fool, however, would write him off. Much can change over the course of a campaign, and Arsenal’s “warrior” has shown before that he can be one of the club’s most reliable servants. Do not bet against him coming back into the fold and having a major impact on Arsenal’s push for trophies.