Season in Review: Right Back

Quick reviews of each position for Arsenal

As the season is entirely wrapped up now and before we turn our attention to the transfer market and next season, I want to go through the squad and look back at how each position performed.

We are starting today with the right-back position.

This is essentially Ben White, who played 34 of 38 times at right back, with Takehiro Tomiyasu and Thomas Partey each adding in a pair of starts. As a group, they performed quite well compared to what other teams got from the position.

Considering that Arsenal played the right back in a more conservative style it is interesting to see that they still ranked quite high in deep completions and ball progression from this position. White also added solid defensive numbers from this spot.

Thinking back to the start of the season, it was not expected that this would become White’s position at all. After a good first season as the right center back it didn’t feel like there was a need for him to change but an early injury to Tomiyasu plus the addition of William Saliba to the back line saw him shifted out wide and he never looked back.

I am not sure many saw this level of performance at this position coming from him and it was one of the nice surprises of the season.

White played at a consistently good level, thinking back on each match he always felt like the 4th choice to be given a stock rising with a good but not necessarily spectacular performance. I think that pretty much sums him up, he did a lot of the work that went noticed but not always remarked upon.

He was a key part of the ball progression, but not as drastic of a change as Oleksandr Zinchenko. He was a key part of the attack on the right-hand group but very clearly the third in the ranking. He was a key part of the defense in the first half of the season that looked very impressive but wasn’t part of the center back partnership.

His contributions were often overshadowed in the team but White still put together a very good season. Among Premier League Right backs he comes out very high on the statistical ratings with an incredibly well-balanced overall performance.

Overall this was an excellent season from White. I think overall with his combination of being available every week, his consistently good performances and his adaptability to fit into multiple slightly different needs give him an 8 out of 10 total for the season.