Arsenal stars Ben White and Oleksandr Zinchenko clashed on the pitch after the 2-1 win against Nottingham Forest on Tuesday evening.
Arsenal looked supremely comfortable up until the 89th minute at the City Ground, when Taiwo Awoniyi pulled a goal back for the hosts.
As a long, high ball was played across the pitch towards Gonzalo Montiel, Arsenal left-back Oleksandr Zinchenko got caught under it and was also deeper than the rest of the Gunners’ defensive line, playing the Nottingham Forest man onside.
Montiel was then able to deliver a ball into the box, where Awoniyi got the better of William Saliba before firing past David Raya from close range.
Ben White, like the rest of his Arsenal teammates, will have been furious to have conceded such a soft goal so late one. Mikel Arteta’s side then had to see out the final few minutes of the match in a far more fraught and nervous fashion than ought to have been the case.
Moments after the Forest goal, Zinchenko was taken off the field, with Jakub Kiwior coming on in his place.
However, after the final whistle, the Ukrainian left-back was back on the pitch and soon found himself engaged in an angry exchange with White. The altercation was quickly broken up, and Arteta was spotted trying to calm Zinchenko down.
Fallout of Ben White and Oleksandr Zinchenko clash as blame pinned on one Arsenal man
After the match, the Spanish coach addressed the bust up, saying, “I love it! I love it because they demand more from each other. They are not happy the way they conceded that [goal] and they are just trying to resolve it. It was a bit heated but that means it is not enough playing the way we played, the result has to be bigger and the clean sheet has to be there,” as quoted by Goal.
However, talkSPORT (31/01/2024, 06:39) pundit Alan Brazil was less impressed by what he saw, and pinned the blame for the encounter on Zinchenko. He said, “by the way I wasn’t happy with Zinchenko, I thought Ben White had a better game to be honest.”
As long as the matter was quickly resolved and no resentments are allowed to fester, no harm will have come from the clash. White and Zinchenko are important players for Arsenal, and it is positive to see that they demand the highest standards of one another. Despite winning the match, the Arsenal squad should be disappointed to have lost their clean sheet. It is positive to see that that matters to them.
However, the incident invited further doubts about the former Manchester City defender. Zinchenko has been singled out as a defensive liability in the past. Whilst he produced a strong performance against Nottingham Forest overall, the flaws in his game were exposed once again.
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