Before joining Arsenal in 2021, Ben White had a breakout season for Leeds United in the Championship during the 2019/20 season.
The defender swept the awards that season, winning Leeds United young player of the year and making the PFA team of the season for the Championship.
Leeds gained promotion to the Premier League that season, and White returned to his parent club. Another solid season at Brighton led Arsenal to splash £50million pounds for his signature.
Ben White has become one of the best players in the league and was part of the best defence in the Premier League last year.
Ben White narrates incredible incident at Leeds United
White played a key role in Leeds during the year they lifted the championship, but his first few weeks at the club were bizarre. According to White, he was demoted to the U23s side just days after joining on loan.
White explained the conversation that went on that day:
“When I first went to Leeds, I got in there, two days in I was in the first-team changing room,” he said. “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?’”
According to the defender, the reason Marcelo Bielsa demoted him was because he was not agile enough to play the style at Leeds.
“In my first training session, he didn’t speak any English so someone would interpret it,” said White. “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. 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.’”
Arsenal defender recalls intense training sessions he had on loan
Mikel Merino said earlier this season that the methods Arsenal used in training were unheard of, and that it was his first time experiencing this.
Well, Ben White said in the interview that Marcelo Bielsa’s training sessions were some of the most intense he had experienced in his career:
“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,” said White. “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.”
