Arsenal’s Ben White reveals brutal feedback he received from former manager

Ben White’s journey to Arsenal went through Elland Road (Picture: Getty Images)

Ben White is now a key player for Premier League giants Arsenal, but he felt a long way from there when he was being given some pretty harsh feedback while on loan at Leeds.

The 27-year-old came through the ranks at Brighton and spent loan spells with Newport County, Peterborough and Leeds.

The defender went on to shine during his 2019/20 season with the Yorkshire club, but it got off to a tough start and manager Marcelo Bielsa did not seem very keen on him at all.

‘When I first went to Leeds, I got in there, two days in I was in the first-team changing room,’ White told Ben Foster for Amazon Prime. ‘The first team wasn’t in yet, for some reason, they were not there. They had a day off or something.

‘I go in there, and someone comes in and tells me “No, you’re in the 23s changing room.” Kicks me out of the first-team changing room, and puts me in the 23s. I stayed there for five, six weeks. So I’m ringing my agent saying “what’s going on?”‘

On Bielsa, and his cutting criticism, White explained: ‘In my first training session, he didn’t speak any English so someone would interpret it.

‘He said to me that I was too slow, I wasn’t agile enough and I wasn’t mentally quick enough, and just walked off. Didn’t speak to me again for probably months.

White took on Arsenal with Leeds in the FA Cup in January 2020 (Picture: Getty Images)

‘I can probably count how many times he spoke to me. But when he would say something to you, you’d just do it. I think it was just for him to say to me, “you’re not at the highest level, you’ve got so much to improve on.”‘

However, it turned out to be a great time for White at Leeds as he made 49 appearances in all competitions as the club topped the Championship.

‘I have never done as much work in training than at Leeds, it was four hours every day, double sessions, sleep at the training ground,’ he said. ‘The runs we had to do were horrendous. But I had that in my mind that I would wait it out and I would be okay. I ended up playing every minute that season.’

White is hoping to be involved when Arsenal take on Bournemouth on Saturday after dealing with a knee injury.

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