Ben White: Arsenal defender on pre-match curries, dressing room punch-ups and Gary Neville criticism

It is nearly five years since Ben White’s first proper taste of professional football during a formative season spent on loan in League Two. “You go there and everything is completely different,” he says of his year at Newport County. “You’re having a curry for your pre-match meal!” That was not the only thing that could get a bit spicy, either.

“In my first game there was a punch-up at half-time, between our own players in our own dressing room.” White, a 19-year-old who had only really known the rather more sanitised environment of academy football, quickly realised the stakes had got a lot higher. “I didn't want to make any mistakes, that's for sure.”

But even if it was a little intimidating initially, the Arsenal centre-half can look back on that time now with fondness.

“It was one of the best years of my life,” he says, sitting at St George’s Park after winning back his place in Gareth Southgate’s England squad. “They were all experiences I had and I think when you go play in those leagues, you see what you should be doing and probably stuff you shouldn't be doing to get to the next level.”

Even up until that point, White’s path to making it to the professional ranks had not been particularly straightforward. At 16, he was released by Southampton. “I was going for a meeting and got told I wasn’t going to get anything, Mum took me and our chat was a little bit quiet on the way home.”

White bluntly admits that he was not surprised to be let go. “I wasn’t good enough when I was younger. I was a late developer. I was probably as tall as I am now but really skinny, gangly, couldn’t really run. And I didn’t play at all when I was there.”

Trials and tribulations followed, quite literally. While looking for a new club, he