Arsenal star admits Marcelo Bielsa didn't speak to him for 'months' at Leeds United following criticism
Arsenal defender Ben White has claimed Marcelo Bielsa did not speak to him for months during his loan spell at Leeds United.
White joined Leeds on loan for the duration of the 2019/20 campaign, while still on the fringes of Brighton & Hove Albion’s first-team squad.
He was signed as a replacement for Pontus Jansson, who had left for Brentford. White’s composure at centre-back endeared him to the Elland Road faithful and he was a revelation in Leeds’ Championship title-winning campaign.
However, speaking to Prime Sport, White has admitted he did not immediately catch the eye of Bielsa in a positive way.
He said: “I think he was so good at that [getting in your head]. My first training session, he didn’t speak English so someone would interpret it. He said to me that I was too slow, I wasn’t agile enough and somehow I wasn’t mentally quick enough and then just walked off.
“He didn’t speak to me again then for probably months. I can probably count how many times he spoke to me. But when he would say something to you, you would just do it.
“I think it’s quite big thing to say, you’re too slow, you can’t really work at that quickly, but I think it was just for him to say you’re not at the highest level and you’ve got so much to improve on.
“Obviously I did, it was my first training session after I hadn’t trained all summer and I probably was too slow.”
Despite Leeds’ efforts to strike a permanent deal for White, he returned to Brighton in the summer of 2020. Arsenal came calling a year later and the 27-year-old has amassed 140 appearances for the Gunners.