Add to favourites: Ben White

Morning all.

As we don’t play until Monday night, it’s likely to be a pretty quiet weekend from an Arsenal perspective. We’ll be keeping an eye on results elsewhere, hoping that both Nottingham Forest and Man Utd can get something from their games against Liverpool and Man City respectively, but I think we all know what’s going to happen. Especially in the Manchester derby which could be a bloodbath, given how many chances United dish up in every game.

There’s an interview with Ben White in the Guardian which is worth a read. I’m probably a bit too long in the tooth to have favourite players … but he is my favourite player. Let’s be honest, there are so many to choose from in this Arsenal squad, due to their qualities and personalities, but there’s something about him which is just a bit unusual in the modern game. You can see when he does post-match interviews, for example, that the media training all footballers get is there, but it comes out in a different way to most others.

The stuff about him not watching football is often treated as a bit of a joke, again because it’s unusual. It’s at odds with our own experience, because even if it’s just Arsenal, we spend a lot of time and energy watching football. But there’s a big difference between the concept of not watching football and not caring about football. It seems pretty clear to me that to be a success in this Arsenal team, you need to understand the game and the opposition, which will require some study (and watching football footage!). It’s just he doesn’t do that when he goes home. You don’t get to where he has in the game without a real competitive nature, something he touches on, saying:

I want to win everything that I do. My missus and I play a lot of games at home and I won’t be letting her win. I remember being young and always wanting to play aggressively and do as much as I could to win.

It was hard not to think of Ben White when questions were put to Mikel…

Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/03/add-to-favourites-ben-white/

Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-03-02 08:17:29

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