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The news that Ben White will miss the rest of the club season due to a knee injury is a heavy blow—not just because Arsenal lose a key player for their decisive matches, but because of everything the right-back has endured since arriving in north London to help Mikel Arteta’s team reach this point.
It may be hard to recall, but White’s signing in July 2021 sparked uproar among fans, whether they supported Arsenal or not. A £50 million fee for a Brighton & Hove Albion defender with only one Premier League season under his belt—largely playing in a back three—raised eyebrows. He was Arsenal’s most expensive acquisition that summer, when all six signings were aged 23 or younger.
After a forgettable debut away to Brentford in early August, when only half 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 chronicling that season, White was shown holding his face and saying: “Mate, I’ve got some little kids absolutely giving me stacks (of abuse). They were mugging me right off. They were like, ‘£50 million? You’re s***.’”
Almost five years later, no one associated with Arsenal questions their feelings for a man who has given everything physically and mentally to push the club forward. The injuries that have finally caught up with him dominate the conversation this week, but before that, there are equally important matters to address.
Within 18 months of joining Arsenal, three moments shifted the neutral perception of White. First, an interview where he insisted his name was Benjamin, not Ben, and revealed he didn’t watch football growing up despite coming through the academy systems at Southampton and Brighton. His deadpan deliveries—which Arsenal supporters have come to love in media dealings—didn’t seem to translate, and that’s where their defense 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 drew boos as recently as his return appearance for the national team under coach Thomas Tuchel in March.
All these factors help explain why Arsenal fans feel so strongly about White, even before considering what he has done on the pitch.
Signed as a center-back, he was part of a new-look back five that laid the foundation for years of success. This was before William Saliba looked like he had a future at the club, and when the Frenchman’s return from loan in summer 2022 forced White into a revolutionary position change. White loved carrying the ball forward from center-back, but Arteta, less a fan of such actions in those areas, found a way to use that skill set at right-back—directly contributing to making Arsenal title contenders in the 2022-23 season.
White helped unlock Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard on the right flank, ending the season with five assists. Takehiro Tomiyasu had played the role excellently the year before, but Arteta could now chop and change depending on how he saw a match unfolding—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 signed the following summer, the newcomer’s ACL tear in August and Tomiyasu’s continued fitness issues forced White to start 35 of 37 league appearances. Over two years, just in the top flight, he started 71 of his 75 matches, all while the physical demands on Arsenal’s full-backs grew.
Rather than staying in a defensive block, with the halfway line as their furthest venture, whoever played right-back was expected to sprint upfield to press opposition left-backs in their own final third. This is part of what has made Arsenal so dominant, but the constant repeat of explosive actions forward, coupled with intense tracking back, takes its toll.
This latest injury is different, as it came from a collision with West Ham winger Crysencio Summerville, but the impact on White has been evident in recent years. Former Arsenal defensive teammate Rob Holding once told sports presenter Michael Timbs 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. 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. This season, he has suffered four separate injuries that contributed to a stop-start campaign. The second, 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, this reflected what Arteta had highlighted the week before: “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 forced White to push 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 has had some shaky moments—like earlier in the season with new teammate Noni Madueke—his recent impact on Saka helped Arsenal’s attack flow more easily.
With this being a contact injury, Neville’s point in commentary about White needing to be stronger in the challenge with Summerville should be noted. Post-match, before confirmation of 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 rocking 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 anyone’s expectations when he signed, but he has also provided lighter moments of joy during his time at the club. Whether it was the shithousery with opposition goalkeepers at corners before the Premier League changed the rules, or the instinctive decisions to back his teammates 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 teammates.
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 center-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, shithousery, dry humor, and joy cannot go under the radar.