The news of Ben White’s club-season-ending knee injury is not only tough to take because Arsenal will be without a key player for its decisive final matches, but because of what the right-back has endured since arriving in north London to help Mikel Arteta’s side reach this point.
It may be hard to remember, but White’s signing in July 2021 caused uproar among fans, whether they supported Arsenal or not.
A fee of £50million for a Brighton & Hove Albion defender who had just one season of Premier League experience, and that largely playing in a back three, raised eyebrows. He was Arsenal’s most expensive buy of that summer, where all six signings were aged either 23 or younger.
After a debut to forget away to Brentford in early August, when only half of those six transfers had been completed, Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville said: “I don’t know the plan at Arsenal. The recruitment has been really poor.”
In Amazon’s All or Nothing documentary series chronicling that Arsenal season, White himself was shown holding his face before saying: “Mate, I’ve got some little kids absolutely giving me stacks (of abuse). They were mugging me right off. They were like, ‘£50million? You’re s***’.”
Almost five years on, and there are no qualms about how those associated with Arsenal feel about a man who has given everything physically and mentally to push them forward. The injuries that have caught up with him are the story of this week, but before we get to them, there are equally important matters to address.
Within 18 months of joining Arsenal, three moments seemed to change the neutral perception of White.
First came the two-in-one from an interview when he insisted his name was Benjamin, not Ben, and then revealed he did not watch football growing up despite coming through the academy system, first at Southampton and then Brighton. The deadpan deliveries that Arsenal supporters have come to love in his dealings with the media did not seem to translate, and that is where their defence of someone who felt like one of their own truly began.
Then came the 2022 World Cup, where White left the England squad after the group stage for personal reasons — a decision that received boos as recently as his return appearance for the national team under current coach Thomas Tuchel in March.
All these factors need recognising when it comes to understanding why Arsenal fans feel so strongly about White, and that is before we even get to what he has done on the pitch.
Signed as a centre-back, he was part of a new-look back five that laid the foundation for the success of years to come. This was before William Saliba looked like he had a future at the club, and when the Frenchman’s return to Arsenal in summer 2022 from a season and a half on loan back in his native France forced White into a revolutionary change of position.
White loved carrying the ball forward from centre-back but Arteta, being less of a fan of such actions in those areas of the pitch, found a way to utilise that skill set at right-back, and it had a direct contribution to making Arsenal title contenders in that 2022-23 season.
White helped unlock Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard on the right flank, and ended the season with five assists himself. Takehiro Tomiyasu had played the role excellently the year before, but now Arteta could chop and change depending on how he envisaged a match playing out — though not for long.
Season-ending injuries to Saliba and Tomiyasu meant White started 36 of the 38 Premier League matches he played that season. Even with Jurrien Timber being signed the following summer, the newcomer’s anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear in the August and Tomiyasu’s continued fitness issue forced White to start 35 of 37 league appearances. So across two years, just in the top flight, he started 71 of his 75 matches, all while the physical demands on Arsenal’s full-backs were growing.
Rather than staying in a defensive block, with the halfway line being the furthest they would venture, whoever was used at right-back was expected to sprint upfield to press opposition left-backs in their own final third, as shown here:
This is part of what has made Arsenal so dominant, but the constant repeat of explosive actions going forward, coupled with the intense tracking back, no doubt takes its toll.
This latest injury is different, as it came through a collision with West Ham winger Crysensio Summerville, but the impact on White has been evident in recent years.
Former Arsenal defensive team-mate Rob Holding once told sports presenter Michael Timbs when discussing White that in the 2021-22 season: “When we played Newcastle away (in the November), he would have had a grade two/grade three hamstring injury easily (grade three being the most serious). His hamstring was shot to hell, and he went out there and played. He’s a mentality monster, I don’t know how he does it. It’s mental.”
Last season, White needed knee surgery and was out for three months either side of Christmas. In this one, he has suffered four separate injuries which have contributed to such a stop-start campaign. The second of those, a hamstring issue in December, was arguably the most telling. After over three months without playing in the Premier League, he had to start four matches in 11 days when he returned.
In a cruel twist of fate, this spoke to something Arteta had highlighted the week before that December incident, as he explained: “The fact that you are missing players, (means) you are loading other players more (as) a consequence. It’s a really dangerous circle.”
Timber’s recent groin injury being more complicated than initially thought has seen White pushing himself again. After missing three league matches with a knock in late February and early March, he had started four of Arsenal’s past five league games. While he’s had some ropey moments, like earlier in the season with new team-mate Noni Madueke, his recent impact on Saka helped Arsenal’s attack flow more easily.
With this being a contact injury, however, Neville’s point in commentary about White being stronger in the challenge with Summerville needs to be taken on board.
Post-match, before the confirmation that this was a medial ligament injury, the former Manchester United and England right-back added: “I’ve done what Ben White did. I did my medial ligament in training. I went in for a challenge, and if you go in for a block tackle and just hang your leg away from your body and lean back, you’ll get the rock(ing) of your knee. Particularly if someone goes in solid. So you have to lean into it and go in strong and get your power forward.”
White picked up a season-ending knee injury against West Ham on Sunday (Kevin Hodgson/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Arsenal players, staff and supporters will have strong feelings about White, and not just because of what he has produced on the pitch.
Yes, he has brought quality beyond the expectations of anyone when he signed, but he has also provided lighter moments of joy in his time at the club. Whether it was the s***housery with opposition goalkeepers at corners before the Premier League changed the rules, or the instinctive decisions to back his team-mates in tussles (like when he smashed a ball into Aston Villa captain John McGinn’s body after a foul on Saliba), White has formed this version of Arsenal as much as any of his team-mates.
Cristhian Mosquera will likely be his replacement for the final two league matches, before the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain on May 30, so there will be something fitting about a centre-back turned right-back trying to get Arsenal over the line in a title race.
If they do, White’s five years of blood, sweat, overlaps, s***housery, dry humour and joy cannot go under the radar.