Ben White recently spoke to the media ahead of our trip to Sheffield United to discuss his winning mentality, the team’s set-piece success, and his new role as an inverted full-back.
Mikel Arteta has drilled into the team a mindset of every day being as important as a Champions League final and, while Ben has that competitive edge he needs, he’s also able to switch off away from football.
“I want to win in everything that I do,” he said. “Me and my missus play a lot of games at home like UNO and I won’t be letting her win anything! I remember being young and always wanting to win and play aggressive and do as much as I could.
“I go home and football’s not a thing for me, I can just be a normal person. When I’m here [at Sobha Realty Training Centre] it’s intense, but as soon as I’m at home it’s the opposite.”
Asked about how prolific we’ve been with scoring from set-pieces this season, and his role within those, he added: “Any way we can score goals is a positive. Adding all of that to the amount of goals we score is important. It’s something that we’re good at now and want to flourish in.
“There’s always someone standing on your feet or elbowing you! I just have to stand in the way and see what happens.”
Recently we’ve seen Ben occupy more of an inverted full-back role and it’s one that he’s taken to comfortably, despite the different requirements.
“It wasn’t really a conversation to be fair,” he explained. “There were a lot of instructions of where I need to be and when. When you have Mikel as your manager it’s quite easy and he makes it simple for you. If you want to play for Arsenal, you’ve got to be technically gifted, strong and fast.
“I’m comfortable playing there but it’s completely different. Playing centre-back and right-back I only have to look forward and never worry about what’s behind me.”
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