Mikel Arteta was full of praise for Ben White in his press conference on Friday morning.
Our new centre-back has impressed since joining us from Brighton in the summer and is in the process of forging a new partnership alongside Gabriel Magalhaes at the heart of our defence.
"We have different options but obviously, we wanted to recruit somebody that could straight away naturally adapt to the way that we want to play," Arteta told Arsenal.com. "Ben had all the qualities that we were looking for. He’s happy to defend, open the space and he’s really good in duels.
"He has a huge personality to play when we’re demanding to make a process with the ball, in different ways against different kinds of press, or when they don’t press and he has time on the ball, to make the right decisions. He has the anger and I really liked his character as well when I met him, and that’s when we made the decision to sign him.
"The language is important, and Gabi has improved a lot in that sense this season. For any centre back partnership, coaching and communication is key, and that’s helping obviously in the back line."
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