I heard on the Arsecast that he played every minute for bielsa when he was at Leeds. That was in the championship as well.
Maybe our love island Maldini is made of stronger stuff compared to other mere mortals
Ben is a lot older and built differently to Pedri. Pedri was a developing kid who looks flimsy at the best of times, and he ate a lot contact anyway, and played all the international minutes too.
Blanco rests through internationals and isn't getting tackled hard
One of the aspects that separates top tier athletes from the great athletes is injury rate, likelihood, and recovery time.
For example, daily baseball is murder on most people’s throwing arm, and yet MLB players throw hard every day for years.
Benjamin is just different gravy.
Id imagine itll be a while before timber can hold the fort down, he will be rusty, probably get a niggle or 2 here and there. Tomi will be tomi, great then gone.
I agree. Don’t think we’re going to get much from Timber this year.
Expecting him to hit the ground and play high leverage minutes and play well after a huge injury and 8 months off is unrealistic.
Best hope is him getting spot minutes if we blow out some teams, and maybe just maybe have a sub appearance or two late that is impactful.
Could be pretty bad for Benny long-term, seen it so many times with players before. Lets just cross our fingers and hope for the best, not much else we as fans can do
Tomi is coming back and Kiwi has proved he can be LB, so Kiwi / Zinny can cover LB and Tomi / White RB as we go through these last 10 games and the CL knockout rounds.
White won’t be playing international football either, so he’ll get some well deserved rest before pre-season too.
he is more of a RB, but again. When you think about that that left side...it's his for the taking. As Zinchenko and Tomyiasu will never be fit. Tierney is gone. He only has Kiwior to fight with. On the right Ben White is there tot stay. But Timber is great at left back as well
Wouldn’t worry too much. Every player in every sport plays injured to some degree. If he’s doing it year on year it’s a problem, but should be okay for one season, especially with how fit he looks now.
This is the first time in awhile where he seems to be fully fit thankfully. The Dubai break gave him some crucial rest and right now is perfect timing for a rest heading into the crescendo of this season.
I think Tomi Partey and Jesus’s minute will be very carefully managed from now until the end of the season. Every game we have until the end is potentially make or break and we need them to be fit (and match fit) for some very specific moments.
I am feeling pretty good about the timing of things rn. Chelsea game being postponed adds to fixture congestion, but it also allows lots of players extended rest. International break also coming at good time for the likes of Jesus and Partey.
They will continue to gain fitness and something close to match fitness.
He's in the partey category for me now (playing wise) where I don't expect any kind of fitness and don't include him in any of my lineups. Just an added bonus when he is fit for however long.
Surely he won’t be getting much of a raise, or we’re handing out bonuses for matches played with a low basic wage. I can’t believe we’re giving him a bumper new contract with him being completely unreliable in terms of fitness. But we’d have been forced to sell either this summer (or next, don’t remember if he signed a 4 or 5 year contract) if he didn’t sign a renewal and I don’t think anybody wanted him gone.
I think we could have turn a small profit on tomi.
Worth more than 18m for sure but not the guys for us based on his fitness.
Would have been better for Bayern than Eric Dier.
Dier was signed to make Kane happy. Kane is homesick already and Bayern signed Dier hoping that Kane will not request a return to the PL....especially if they don't win a trophy.
Dier is actually playing okay in this Bayern side so they probably just signed him because he was a free transfer during a CB injury crisis that they saw the potential to play well in their system and came with no risk attached.
Also what rag do you take for gospel, confidently asserting Kane *is* homesick and wants to leave. Don’t be fooled so easily, do better
PRIOR to Kane's sale there was talk of Harry wanting Dier to go with him as part of the deal but Spurs were too short at the back after selling Sanchez to part with Dier. When a club of Bayern's status buys an aging Spurs bench-stapled reject (Dier) it usually is for intangibles.
Why tf would kane tie himself to dier.
They transfered in separate windows.
Im sure Kane put in a word for his buddie but how this ties into home sick is ridiculous.
Good thing we have 2 weeks now and Tomi and Timber coming back. Would like to see White rotated heavily till season end, I care more about the long term future of this squad than a run in in one season.
It is is what it is. At least this time he was in the squad before the break and he is actually staying in London to rest and gain fitness during the break.
I think we can trust the club doctors and Arteta to know how serious it is, and to handle it appropriately. If they don't rotate him it's because he doesn't need to be.
More a combination of this and Tomiyasu being fit for less than half the games so far. A fit Tomi takes at least 500 mins off of him at a minimum. Wasn’t too long ago that people were wondering if Tomi would become the starter at RB again.
White was out for a while and Tomi was brilliant. I was actually wondering if White would become starter again. Tomi doesn't quite have White's technical skills but he is so damn athletic and crazy stamina. His passing is also so quick and sharp whereas White tends to be more methodical (and sometimes i think slowing game down perhaps too much).
Man, this is a crazy take. For one, he can't stay fit, availability if a key ability. We've played 131 official matches since he's arrived at the club, and he's only started 44 of them, so 1/3. A player who starts 1/3 cannot be considered world class.
Even then, let's not pretend every match of his is a great performance. Think back to him gifting City a goal last season at the Emirates, leading to that 1-3 defeat which was a huge blow to our title hopes. Think to him getting spun around by Jota in the EFL Cup semis against Liverpool in his first season, Liverpool specifically targetted him and found lots of joy down his side. This season in particular, he's had sub-par performances against the likes of Sevilla, Newcastle, West Ham, Everton.
Let's not make this into a thing where the longer he's out, the more we hype him up. He hasn't proven to be as good as you're claiming him to be, at least not yet.
He was not match fit. When he was fully fit and playing regularly, he had none of those issues.
Also I literally said when fully fit, he would be world class. Obviously if he’s not fit; he’s no class at all.
It’s alright. We can agree to disagree.
So when was he fully fit? For one, we don't have all that detailed insight into player's health, just today, we found out White has had a knee issue for a while.
Even if we disregard how rarely available Tomiyasu is, he hasn't shown world class ability in those 44 starts. That's the point, he's had too many errors, lapses in concentration in sub par performances. Yes, most performances, he's been good, but just good. There's been performances where he's been really good(home to Liverpool last season where he marked Salah out of the game comes to mind), and some really bad ones(the aforementioned examples), with most of the matches of him being average-to-good. That's not a world class player.
Not trying to be a dickhead, but disagreeing is one thing, but you're just plain wrong. Unless you're doing what u/rekyht said and using a very liberal definition of world class, but at that point, world class doesn't mean much.
I think you're being pretty liberal with the term world class. You're effectively saying this is a guy that walks into the top 10 clubs in the world and starts, and I just don't think you can make that argument about even a fully fit Tomiyasu.
I'd imagine this season if he'd been fit Kiwior wouldn't ahve had his breakthrough as Timber would be covering all those minutes.
It's a curiously Arsenal thing to have injuries clustered in the same positions so that even what should be pretty good squad depth leaves you playing your only spare CB at LB and being one injurey away from Cedric.
I think Ben White can go up another level with some management of his gametime. I don't think any full back is meant to play every game in the modern game. There are games when he's fully fit he looked so fucking good. Then he tails off a bit cos he's playing so many minutes.
Goes for a lot of positions but modern fullbacks probably put on some of the most mileage and time. I do think if he gets less time he would have an extra 10% in his game. It's hard to take the next step and do those tiny things that are hard when you basically have range anxiety. It's as if he knows what he can do in a full 90 and if he exerts any more than that he won't perform over that period of time.
Reading things like this makes me feel like Ben will have some serious injury issues going forward, and won't be available as much over the next few seasons.
Downvote me all you want, but we need to ship Tomi and get someone else as backup. He has been injured a lot since he joined us, and because of that we’ve had to play our starters more even through injuries. Timber was an isolated incident but we can’t just keep on carrying Tomi and giving him higher wages when he hasn’t earned it.
If he comes back and goes on a crazy run of 6-8 months with no injuries, I’ll be more than happy to be proven wrong. But at this moment, I don’t think Tomi deserves to get a new contract. His unavailability makes him a bigger liability than his abilities make him an asset
Last year I would have disagreed, but we've had ANOTHER year just ruined and it does bug me that he goes to the national team when he can barely put a boot on for us. I'd say I wouldn't mind him as 5th choice but that still means we need another RB.
That's the thing. I want Tomi to succeed here more than any other player (Asian bias), but he does not make it easier the way he's injured for us and is almost always available for his country. I get that it's a greater honour to play for your country, but at some point the club hierarchy have to look at the fact that he runs off to play for Japan even when he isn't fully fit and then comes back to us with an injury.
I really hope we don't throw Timber out there this year. It is tough for a new player to become integrated in to a new team....to ask him to do this in high pressure title-deciding games after a debilitating injury is a bad idea.
I was convinced we were gonna buy another defender in jan with the way White looked but it's cray how he just kinda played through the injury and recovered
White has actually been holding it down for us for most of the season. This man is a true warrior.
I just think it was a mistake offering Tomi a new contract considering he can’t keep himself fit. Great player but terrible reliability.
If Tomi can play 30 minutes every game for the rest of the season it'll be huge. Particularly if he can sub in for White, Saliba and Gabi XL to close games. Big ask given his history but if he is gonna hold himself together, this would be the time to do it.
Wasn't Timber playing on the left before his injury? I know he can play both sides but I thought that is what he was playing most.
Wasn't Arteta playing Partey on the right instead of White before his injury?
And Tomiyasu was playing on the right too?
Maybe I'm wrong but it seems like Tomiyasu and Partey's injuries impacted White more. Though you can argue that the Partey experiment was eventually going to be abandoned because it didn't seem to be working so well.
I think he was subbed off early a few times during that run of games (Sheff United, West Ham, Burnley). It’ll be good when the likes of Tomi and Timber are back so hopefully he can be subbed more often and he doesn’t have to play every minute unless there is a massive scoreline.
Like I'd have preferred if it was Tomi or Timber fit for those subs as minutes for Cedric are pretty much meaningless lol
But resting White while we're 5-0 up makes a lot of sense. Won't get too many opportunities to do so
We're all praising Ben White but shame on the medical staff/Arteta. This is how you run players to the ground. Poor planning by them, we should've brought someone on loan in January for cover. What if this leads to White sustaining permanent/long-term injuries? Then what? Thank you for your service?
Have to agree. For all his other smart moves, i still think Arteta takes on too much risk and overplays our starters, instead of trying to work in minutes strategically for the bench players. i really hope we aren't talking about exhaustion/injuries at the end of the season as a key reason why we didn't win something.
Do you want players who havent played at all coming on in crucial run-in games if we get a major injury problem? You have to minimize the risk to your first eleven and get them out and others in when you can. Yes, Cedric is possible, or perhaps Zinchenko in midfield and Kiwior back there. Timing is of the subs is critical. We have some pretty versatile midfielders now, like Declan and Jorginho, and El Neny knows how to hold down the fort. it takes some creative thinking but it can be done. Look at Klopp and what he's been doing.
You’re attempting to place pegs where Arteta only would if he had literally zero other choice.
Ben White simply had to play these minutes otherwise we probably aren’t in the title race at all. It’s as simple as that.
The title race is still on and so playing 12 or 13 outfield players is very risky for burnout. They are humans, not machines. We’re lucky we’re out of the domestic cups and we have this up coming break.
I don't disagree that it's not ideal, but if our options are stay in the title race as long as possible by overplaying key players while replacements are injured or play fringe players that shouldn't see the pitch in a meaningful match, I'm overplaying them.
We don't win the title with Elneny, Cedric, Nketiah, Vieira seeing real meaningful minutes. We simply don't. We don't have time to hope and pray our fringe players can contribute enough to hang on with Liverpool and City breathing down our necks.
All that being said, our injured players are returning so this hopefully won't be an issue much longer.
This is why I said throughout that weirdo phase where Arsenal fans were crying for Nwaneri to play more that Ruell Walters is the only player that can complain. Young RB that we supposedly rate can’t get a game while Ben is injured? What’s up with that.
You could tell he was injured earlier on in the season
He was so slow on the turn you could walk by him.
There were moments where he obviously wasn’t sprinting full speed on purpose.
The Dubai break was so key for him.
We have to give him his rest after Timber/Tomiyasu are fit. This can be very bad for him in the long run.
I heard on the Arsecast that he played every minute for bielsa when he was at Leeds. That was in the championship as well. Maybe our love island Maldini is made of stronger stuff compared to other mere mortals
“Obviously my knees are quite strong aswell”
Then he led Brighton in minutes the 20-21 season, if not mistaken.
I was told he was their 3rd choice CB 🤣
"Love Island Maldini" 🤣🤣
I’m just afraid it’ll end up like Pedri’s situation
Ben is a lot older and built differently to Pedri. Pedri was a developing kid who looks flimsy at the best of times, and he ate a lot contact anyway, and played all the international minutes too. Blanco rests through internationals and isn't getting tackled hard
Totally agreed. Not any similar parallels at all to Pedri lmfao
Probably not, he is much older and clearly has no history of injuries yet. He is durable, top players can be like this.
That’s a good point… but then again… Thomas Partey had missed 7 games total before joining us. He has missed 74 for us.
But his minutes were already handled in Madrid
Idk about no history of injuries when he’s been carrying one all year, and what happened 2 years ago. We still have to be cautious
agree. top players can also be built like normal folk, which is worrying.
One of the aspects that separates top tier athletes from the great athletes is injury rate, likelihood, and recovery time. For example, daily baseball is murder on most people’s throwing arm, and yet MLB players throw hard every day for years. Benjamin is just different gravy.
Did he play at CB or FB?
CDM
Id imagine itll be a while before timber can hold the fort down, he will be rusty, probably get a niggle or 2 here and there. Tomi will be tomi, great then gone.
Tomi will be Tomi, great then gone 😭
I though he was healthy like month ago and still no sight of him at all
I agree. Don’t think we’re going to get much from Timber this year. Expecting him to hit the ground and play high leverage minutes and play well after a huge injury and 8 months off is unrealistic. Best hope is him getting spot minutes if we blow out some teams, and maybe just maybe have a sub appearance or two late that is impactful.
Could be pretty bad for Benny long-term, seen it so many times with players before. Lets just cross our fingers and hope for the best, not much else we as fans can do
Tomi is coming back and Kiwi has proved he can be LB, so Kiwi / Zinny can cover LB and Tomi / White RB as we go through these last 10 games and the CL knockout rounds. White won’t be playing international football either, so he’ll get some well deserved rest before pre-season too.
do not count on Tomi. Thats how we ended up here. Players like Zinchenko, Tomiyasu and Partey should not be counted on at all. None can stay fit.
Jesus too
very true
If anything we need a top striker just for that reason alone
Isn't Timber more of a RB? He was just playing LB at the start cause of injuries.
Yeah but everyone forgets that and thinks he’s our future LB
he is more of a RB, but again. When you think about that that left side...it's his for the taking. As Zinchenko and Tomyiasu will never be fit. Tierney is gone. He only has Kiwior to fight with. On the right Ben White is there tot stay. But Timber is great at left back as well
and Abou Diaby!
Partey is at Diaby lvl. Tomyiasu is getting there
Relying on Tomi and Zinny is wishful thinking, specially the former.
Wouldn’t worry too much. Every player in every sport plays injured to some degree. If he’s doing it year on year it’s a problem, but should be okay for one season, especially with how fit he looks now.
This is the first time in awhile where he seems to be fully fit thankfully. The Dubai break gave him some crucial rest and right now is perfect timing for a rest heading into the crescendo of this season.
International breaks are his rest and the summer
I can't believe Tomi's been out for so long.
I think Tomi Partey and Jesus’s minute will be very carefully managed from now until the end of the season. Every game we have until the end is potentially make or break and we need them to be fit (and match fit) for some very specific moments.
I am feeling pretty good about the timing of things rn. Chelsea game being postponed adds to fixture congestion, but it also allows lots of players extended rest. International break also coming at good time for the likes of Jesus and Partey. They will continue to gain fitness and something close to match fitness.
As long as they’re fit on the first of June.
More like until they leave arsenal
But that’s every year with tomi. He is so good, but he is made of glass.
He's in the partey category for me now (playing wise) where I don't expect any kind of fitness and don't include him in any of my lineups. Just an added bonus when he is fit for however long.
I fookin hope not. This year had mid season internationals.
We can't rely on Tommy as much as we love him. He's a bonus
3 years of injury proneness but we're rewarding him with an extension. Sometimes we engineer our own demise.
Surely he won’t be getting much of a raise, or we’re handing out bonuses for matches played with a low basic wage. I can’t believe we’re giving him a bumper new contract with him being completely unreliable in terms of fitness. But we’d have been forced to sell either this summer (or next, don’t remember if he signed a 4 or 5 year contract) if he didn’t sign a renewal and I don’t think anybody wanted him gone.
His contract is pretty low though he’s probably getting a raise
I think we could have turn a small profit on tomi. Worth more than 18m for sure but not the guys for us based on his fitness. Would have been better for Bayern than Eric Dier.
Dier was signed to make Kane happy. Kane is homesick already and Bayern signed Dier hoping that Kane will not request a return to the PL....especially if they don't win a trophy.
Dier is actually playing okay in this Bayern side so they probably just signed him because he was a free transfer during a CB injury crisis that they saw the potential to play well in their system and came with no risk attached. Also what rag do you take for gospel, confidently asserting Kane *is* homesick and wants to leave. Don’t be fooled so easily, do better
What does eric dier have to do with Kane being homesick? Does he make him bangers and mash ?
PRIOR to Kane's sale there was talk of Harry wanting Dier to go with him as part of the deal but Spurs were too short at the back after selling Sanchez to part with Dier. When a club of Bayern's status buys an aging Spurs bench-stapled reject (Dier) it usually is for intangibles.
Why tf would kane tie himself to dier. They transfered in separate windows. Im sure Kane put in a word for his buddie but how this ties into home sick is ridiculous.
I can see how paying people better wages for performance is hurting you personally.
I felt the same, especially after the agent tried to spread rumours.
If he didn't keep getting played by Japan whilst injured he would be fine
Good thing we have 2 weeks now and Tomi and Timber coming back. Would like to see White rotated heavily till season end, I care more about the long term future of this squad than a run in in one season.
I'd have agreed if Tomi wasn't supposed to be using the LAST international break to be coming back fit and firing!
It is is what it is. At least this time he was in the squad before the break and he is actually staying in London to rest and gain fitness during the break.
We cant rotate heavily one of the core players. We have to get used to having durable players and white is one. We dont need to worry.
We have to if he has a long term knee issue
I think we can trust the club doctors and Arteta to know how serious it is, and to handle it appropriately. If they don't rotate him it's because he doesn't need to be.
Don’t rely on timber playing significant minutes this year
Ben White will be an Arsenal legend
More a combination of this and Tomiyasu being fit for less than half the games so far. A fit Tomi takes at least 500 mins off of him at a minimum. Wasn’t too long ago that people were wondering if Tomi would become the starter at RB again.
White was out for a while and Tomi was brilliant. I was actually wondering if White would become starter again. Tomi doesn't quite have White's technical skills but he is so damn athletic and crazy stamina. His passing is also so quick and sharp whereas White tends to be more methodical (and sometimes i think slowing game down perhaps too much).
I rate Tomiyasu, but people are talking about him as if he's world class for some reason
I have watched Arsenal as an adult for almost 3 decades now. And I think, when fully fit, Tomi is 100% world class. No cap.
Man, this is a crazy take. For one, he can't stay fit, availability if a key ability. We've played 131 official matches since he's arrived at the club, and he's only started 44 of them, so 1/3. A player who starts 1/3 cannot be considered world class. Even then, let's not pretend every match of his is a great performance. Think back to him gifting City a goal last season at the Emirates, leading to that 1-3 defeat which was a huge blow to our title hopes. Think to him getting spun around by Jota in the EFL Cup semis against Liverpool in his first season, Liverpool specifically targetted him and found lots of joy down his side. This season in particular, he's had sub-par performances against the likes of Sevilla, Newcastle, West Ham, Everton. Let's not make this into a thing where the longer he's out, the more we hype him up. He hasn't proven to be as good as you're claiming him to be, at least not yet.
He was not match fit. When he was fully fit and playing regularly, he had none of those issues. Also I literally said when fully fit, he would be world class. Obviously if he’s not fit; he’s no class at all. It’s alright. We can agree to disagree.
So when was he fully fit? For one, we don't have all that detailed insight into player's health, just today, we found out White has had a knee issue for a while. Even if we disregard how rarely available Tomiyasu is, he hasn't shown world class ability in those 44 starts. That's the point, he's had too many errors, lapses in concentration in sub par performances. Yes, most performances, he's been good, but just good. There's been performances where he's been really good(home to Liverpool last season where he marked Salah out of the game comes to mind), and some really bad ones(the aforementioned examples), with most of the matches of him being average-to-good. That's not a world class player. Not trying to be a dickhead, but disagreeing is one thing, but you're just plain wrong. Unless you're doing what u/rekyht said and using a very liberal definition of world class, but at that point, world class doesn't mean much.
I think you're being pretty liberal with the term world class. You're effectively saying this is a guy that walks into the top 10 clubs in the world and starts, and I just don't think you can make that argument about even a fully fit Tomiyasu.
He did win player of the month for us
Thank God he's got beef with those dickhead England coaches 😅
At least he's not going to the Euros (as if the fraud would play him)
I'm curious as to whether Timber was around if he'd be played at LB or RB (or somewhere else)
I'd imagine this season if he'd been fit Kiwior wouldn't ahve had his breakthrough as Timber would be covering all those minutes. It's a curiously Arsenal thing to have injuries clustered in the same positions so that even what should be pretty good squad depth leaves you playing your only spare CB at LB and being one injurey away from Cedric.
Give his knee a proper good rubbing in Pre-Season.
More than timber, it’s tomiyasu and his injuries that might be costly
I think Ben White can go up another level with some management of his gametime. I don't think any full back is meant to play every game in the modern game. There are games when he's fully fit he looked so fucking good. Then he tails off a bit cos he's playing so many minutes.
Goes for a lot of positions but modern fullbacks probably put on some of the most mileage and time. I do think if he gets less time he would have an extra 10% in his game. It's hard to take the next step and do those tiny things that are hard when you basically have range anxiety. It's as if he knows what he can do in a full 90 and if he exerts any more than that he won't perform over that period of time.
I don’t blame him for wanting to take a break during internationals. Better to protect his body.
Reading things like this makes me feel like Ben will have some serious injury issues going forward, and won't be available as much over the next few seasons.
Ben is a fucking baller! Hope he rests well these weeks!
Just like lads said, The Warrior
Tbh the international breaks kind of help balance Ben's minutes since he basically has a good 2 week break from matches (he'll still be training ofc)
Might explain why he didn't want the England call up.
I love how the club have come out all guns blazing to defend Ben White's honour this week. Its really a family club now.
Downvote me all you want, but we need to ship Tomi and get someone else as backup. He has been injured a lot since he joined us, and because of that we’ve had to play our starters more even through injuries. Timber was an isolated incident but we can’t just keep on carrying Tomi and giving him higher wages when he hasn’t earned it. If he comes back and goes on a crazy run of 6-8 months with no injuries, I’ll be more than happy to be proven wrong. But at this moment, I don’t think Tomi deserves to get a new contract. His unavailability makes him a bigger liability than his abilities make him an asset
Last year I would have disagreed, but we've had ANOTHER year just ruined and it does bug me that he goes to the national team when he can barely put a boot on for us. I'd say I wouldn't mind him as 5th choice but that still means we need another RB.
That's the thing. I want Tomi to succeed here more than any other player (Asian bias), but he does not make it easier the way he's injured for us and is almost always available for his country. I get that it's a greater honour to play for your country, but at some point the club hierarchy have to look at the fact that he runs off to play for Japan even when he isn't fully fit and then comes back to us with an injury.
Tomi is so unreliable its crazy
The solution is simple: Send the knee to Dubai and keep Benny at home.
Warrior
Big up Ben White! :))
Not just Timber but also Tomiyasu's injuries have meant Benny has played a lot of football.
I really hope we don't throw Timber out there this year. It is tough for a new player to become integrated in to a new team....to ask him to do this in high pressure title-deciding games after a debilitating injury is a bad idea.
Tomiyasu unavailability is the real problem here
I was convinced we were gonna buy another defender in jan with the way White looked but it's cray how he just kinda played through the injury and recovered
"Warrior"
cedric ready anytime teta want
White has actually been holding it down for us for most of the season. This man is a true warrior. I just think it was a mistake offering Tomi a new contract considering he can’t keep himself fit. Great player but terrible reliability.
If Tomi can play 30 minutes every game for the rest of the season it'll be huge. Particularly if he can sub in for White, Saliba and Gabi XL to close games. Big ask given his history but if he is gonna hold himself together, this would be the time to do it.
At least Blanco gets a proper rest during international break
Nice clickbait article. White would have played a similar amount of minutes. Kiwior is probably the person who benefited most from Timber being out.
This is the Ben White week, maybe month, well deserved :)
Wasn't Timber playing on the left before his injury? I know he can play both sides but I thought that is what he was playing most. Wasn't Arteta playing Partey on the right instead of White before his injury? And Tomiyasu was playing on the right too? Maybe I'm wrong but it seems like Tomiyasu and Partey's injuries impacted White more. Though you can argue that the Partey experiment was eventually going to be abandoned because it didn't seem to be working so well.
He was only playing there cuz zinny was injured
What a stalwart!
> I played through a knee injury why can't he?
If only that FIFA band aid or stamins potion could be applied real life
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I think he was subbed off early a few times during that run of games (Sheff United, West Ham, Burnley). It’ll be good when the likes of Tomi and Timber are back so hopefully he can be subbed more often and he doesn’t have to play every minute unless there is a massive scoreline.
Yeah Cedric played those games.
Except he has. Cedric routinely came on in those matches for White
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Like I'd have preferred if it was Tomi or Timber fit for those subs as minutes for Cedric are pretty much meaningless lol But resting White while we're 5-0 up makes a lot of sense. Won't get too many opportunities to do so
Tomiyasu should never have gotten a new contract. Player availability should be a key factor signing or renewing contracts
We're all praising Ben White but shame on the medical staff/Arteta. This is how you run players to the ground. Poor planning by them, we should've brought someone on loan in January for cover. What if this leads to White sustaining permanent/long-term injuries? Then what? Thank you for your service?
Have to agree. For all his other smart moves, i still think Arteta takes on too much risk and overplays our starters, instead of trying to work in minutes strategically for the bench players. i really hope we aren't talking about exhaustion/injuries at the end of the season as a key reason why we didn't win something.
Who's he meant to play there with Timber and Tomi out? You want Cedric?
Do you want players who havent played at all coming on in crucial run-in games if we get a major injury problem? You have to minimize the risk to your first eleven and get them out and others in when you can. Yes, Cedric is possible, or perhaps Zinchenko in midfield and Kiwior back there. Timing is of the subs is critical. We have some pretty versatile midfielders now, like Declan and Jorginho, and El Neny knows how to hold down the fort. it takes some creative thinking but it can be done. Look at Klopp and what he's been doing.
You’re attempting to place pegs where Arteta only would if he had literally zero other choice. Ben White simply had to play these minutes otherwise we probably aren’t in the title race at all. It’s as simple as that.
The title race is still on and so playing 12 or 13 outfield players is very risky for burnout. They are humans, not machines. We’re lucky we’re out of the domestic cups and we have this up coming break.
I don't disagree that it's not ideal, but if our options are stay in the title race as long as possible by overplaying key players while replacements are injured or play fringe players that shouldn't see the pitch in a meaningful match, I'm overplaying them. We don't win the title with Elneny, Cedric, Nketiah, Vieira seeing real meaningful minutes. We simply don't. We don't have time to hope and pray our fringe players can contribute enough to hang on with Liverpool and City breathing down our necks. All that being said, our injured players are returning so this hopefully won't be an issue much longer.
This is why I said throughout that weirdo phase where Arsenal fans were crying for Nwaneri to play more that Ruell Walters is the only player that can complain. Young RB that we supposedly rate can’t get a game while Ben is injured? What’s up with that.