Ben White was met with boos from a section of England supporters after he scored for the Three Lions against Uruguay on Friday. England manager Thomas Tuchel described the reaction as disappointing and defended the decision to bring the Arsenal defender back into the squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t hear it on the field because I was involved in the changes and instructions,\u201d Tuchel said after the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt cannot be the majority. There were some boos and some mixed reception for him which I am disappointed about because of course protect our players.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was excellent in camp. He deserved to come on. He deserved also to start and got us almost the winner. But I also understood that it happened to other players before here.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe needs to take it on the chin. We will always protect him and hopefully we can put it behind [us] because he is ready to write some new chapters. We are ready to give him the chance so hopefully everyone can move on and accept it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mixed reception follows White\u2019s absence from England duty since the 2022 World Cup. He travelled with the squad in the winter of 2022 but left the camp after two games. No formal reason has been given, although it has been widely reported that he clashed with a member of the former manager Sir Gareth Southgate\u2019s coaching staff, namely assistant manager Steve Holland. Southgate has denied those claims.<\/p>\n
When Southgate attempted to recall White in 2024, the defender made it clear he did not want to be considered. With Southgate and his staff no longer in charge, White accepted the recent England call-up. He was drafted in as a replacement for the injured Jarell Quansah after initially failing to make Tuchel\u2019s extended 35-player squad.<\/p>\n
Some fans argued White should not have been allowed to return after refusing to play when previously asked.<\/p>\n
The match also offered a reminder of how public opinion can shift. Friday\u2019s captain Jordan Henderson faced sustained criticism after his 2023 transfer to Al Ettifaq. That six-month spell cost him his place in 2024, but Tuchel recalled the now-Brentford midfielder in the summer of 2025 and the negativity largely disappeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs teammates we are always there to support,\u201d Henderson reflected. \u201cA lot of the fans will be in support of all of the players.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been through it myself, but that is part and parcel of being an England player.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the fans probably don\u2019t even know why they are booing, they listen to what is being said in the media, and a lot of the time what the media says isn\u2019t true. Not many people know the ins and outs of what happened in Qatar and it is for us to deal with internally.<\/p>\n
\u201cBen has been good since he came back in and we will support him as teammates. ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ben White was booed after scoring v Uruguay; Tuchel called it disappointing and teammates backed him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,961],"tags":[984,1305,1304],"class_list":["post-9984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-international","tag-ben-white","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}