Alan Hutton is surprised at how poor Ben White’s performance was when Arsenal faced Crystal Palace in the Premier League last night.
The Gunners’ most expensive defender started the game brightly and brought the ball out from the defence with confidence in the first few minutes of the first half.
However, his performance eventually dropped later in the game and he was to blame for Odsonne Edouard’s goal for Palace.
It appeared as if his production dropped off soon after kick-off and he didn’t fare much better after the halftime break.
Former Tottenham defender, Hutton admits the Englishman has a lot of confidence in himself and showed what he can do in the first few minutes of the game.
However, he needs to be more consistent and learn to maintain his level of performance for the entire 90 minutes.
Hutton also compared him to former Manchester United defender, Rio Ferdinand.
“Watching last night, for the first 10 or 15 minutes I thought Arsenal were brilliant,” Hutton told Football Insider.
“Ben White striding out of the defence with the ball, I thought, ‘here we go’ and then, ugh, I don’t know what happened to him. It was a bit of a strange one.
“He’ll grow into a very good player, I’m sure of it. He’s still finding his feet at the moment.
“We’re seeing in bits he’s very confident, he’s coming out with the ball which I like to see.
“The way Rio Ferdinand used to do at Manchester United, he’d come out with it and then find a pass. I saw that in White last night. He just needs to do that consistently now.”