Ben White is a no-nonsense player. Almost as no-nonsense as they come. He prefers to be called the name his parents gave him, Benjamin, and he does not care what you think of him.
Benjamin does not watch football either. He always loved playing the sport but does not go back to watching it when he’s done playing.
He’s so unaware of the sport, that when he was asked about how he felt sharing a jersey number with Arsenal legend Patrick Vieira, he said he didn’t know much about him.
Another place where we see this no-nonsense personality trait kick in is during his post-match interviews.
Ever since the 25-year-old joined Arsenal, his interviews have been hilariously short and to the point. When asked a question, he sticks to giving one-word answers, and he straight up says “no” to any question he disagrees with.
People started realizing how intentionally or unintentionally funny he is after the Liverpool post-match interview.
He was asked a question saying how he felt about Liverpool playing 4 attackers and he answered with a simple “I didn’t notice”. Well fair enough considering Arsenal won that game.
Another interview after the Southampton game resulted in similar funny responses, but a very different reaction from the world of football, who are now seemingly divided on his way of answering.
In the presser, White stuck to his ideology of keeping the replies short. He even stuck to his guns when the commentator asked how he felt about the team being bullied in the second half by simply saying “we weren’t bullied.”
On one hand are fans who love his take-no-prisoners style of answering. They say he is perfectly answering the reporter who is clearly baiting him to get a headline.
In his defense are also arguments that these questions are just bad, and that no player would answer in a much better way than he did.
Those against him outline the fact that the defender is giving answers that purposely makes the interviewer’s job difficult.
By not giving longer or detailed answers, the interviewer has less to go on with and it might end up becoming a bad look for the interviewer in front of the bosses.
Some felt that he was even being disrespectful to those who are seeking answers for the game, highlighting the effort taken by the journalist to get answers out of a player.
Lee Dixon, an Arsenal legend, had a different reaction to this interview – one regarding his attitude after a draw. He called White’s response over the top, saying that White looked as if his team was beaten 8-0.
“He’s feeling what he’s feeling but I still think that this season, when you play like that in the second half, you’ve got to take it on the chin and go, “yeah, we didn’t play great, move on to the next one”. But he was very down there wasn’t he?”
This interaction pretty much sums up both sides of the argument, and it’s really up to anyone to decide what they feel is the correct way of answering.
Whether this is a good thing or bad, we are not quite sure yet.
His performance definitely looks unaffected though as he is currently Arsenal’s most reliable defender as they stride along the top of the table.
Continue that and fans won’t care if he can speak two sentences in an interview or not.
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