Dion Dublin has been critical of Ben White for ‘pretending to be injured’ just before Arsenal conceded against Southampton on Saturday at St Mary’s, as he told the Weekend Review on PL Productions (18/04/22 at 12:25 pm).
Before Jan Bednarek could score the only goal of the game, White was off the pitch during that passage of play, before getting back up and trying to close down the Southampton defender when he fired at goal.
Unfortunately for White, he was those few seconds too late and he wasn’t able to stop Bednarek from scoring.
In truth, if White hadn’t gone to ground and stayed on the floor, then he would have been quicker to the ball and been able to block it from going past Aaron Ramsdale.
That was touched upon by former Manchester United and Aston Villa striker, Dublin, who made it clear that White’s not going to be doing that again.
“It’s a strange one,” said Dublin. “Ben White finds himself off the side of the pitch. He is pretending to be injured and then thinks ‘Oh no, I better defend’.
“Then he comes onto the pitch too late. He could have got closer to Bednarek if he stayed on the pitch and not pretended to be injured.
“He would have been okay and they wouldn’t have conceded. Put it this way, he would have gone to bed thinking ‘I could have got a bit closer and I am not going that again’.”
These past few weeks have been pretty tough for Arsenal, their goal-shy forward line can’t hit a barn door and their error-prone defence is all over the place.
Everything going wrong at the wrong time and during the most critical part of the season.
Fourtnely for Mikel Arteta, whilst some damage is being done, they can still recover and secure Champions League football.
Arsenal are three points behind fourth-placed Tottenham with a game in hand and they can put the pressure back on their north London rivals by beating Chelsea on Wednesday night at Stamford Bridge.
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