BEN WHITE wants to set up his own dog walking business when he retires.
But for now, the Arsenal right-back is enjoying being let off the leash as the leader of Mikel Arteta’s hounds of hell, admitting: I love a big early tackle… let them know you’re there.
White says his early days getting roughed up in the lower leagues gives him the edge as the Gunners’ instigator of aggression and alleged ‘dark arts’ against Prem opponents.
Having just turned 27, thoughts are already turning to what to do when he hangs his boots up.
He said: “I don’t want to be a pundit. I was thinking of being a dog walker, get a little van.”
Yet there is still plenty of life in the ‘old’ dog yet as a key cog in Arteta’s title-chasing side – whether it is being a nuisance at set-pieces or getting physical with opposition wingers.
As a 19-year-old, White learned his trade on loan from Brighton at Newport County in League Two in 2017/18 before heading to Peterborough United in League One in 2018/19.
And asked what he loves most in a game, White said: “A big tackle. The first 15 minutes of a game, the first tackle on someone to let them know that’s all game you’re gonna get that.
“The old fashioned let them know you’re there.
“My best season was on loan at Newport. There are aspects of [lower league football] that come into the Premier League and I try and bring some of that.
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“There are not many players who have played in League Two and the Premier League.
“Even with the really good players we play against, they’re so good but sometimes you can get a bit of leverage [against them] by being aggressive.
“Trying to find any way to win and I will do that. I’m not the best one-v-one defender or the quickest or strongest but finding a way to win, that’s the best thing I have been able to learn.”
White was dropped by Southampton as a 16-year-old, admitting he was “too tall, gangly, couldn’t run” before being picked up the Seagulls shortly after in 2014.
And he was also given a wake-up call by managerial great Marcelo Bielsa while on loan at Leeds United in 2019/20 – a campaign where the Yorkshire club earned Prem promotion.
White explained: “When I first went to Leeds, someone tells me I’m in the U23s changing room. I stayed in there for five or six weeks.
“The first training session I had, [Bielsa] didn’t speak any English, someone would interpret it, and he said I was too slow, not agile enough and not mentally quick enough.
“And then he just walked off, and didn’t speak to me again for months, but when he says something, you do it. For him to say that to me, you’re not at the highest level…
“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.
“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. The runs we had to do were horrendous.”
Following his £50m switch from Brighton to Arsenal in July 2021, White has become a mainstay in Arteta’s now famed back four – one that conceded just 29 Prem goals last term.
But White is comfortable for the spotlight to rest on others, including keeper David Raya and centre-back pairing William Saliba and Gabriel, the latter scoring 16 goals – more than any other defender since the Brazilian joined in September 2020.
White said: “Saliba is absolutely incredible. Nothing I could say is a weakness.
“In training you see glimpses of how good he is but in a game he’s a different level. He can just cruise in training. No one even tries [going past him] because there is no point.
“The threat [Gabriel] has in the box is scary. Every time you get a corner you kind of know you’re going to score, if the ball is in an alright area.”
