Martin Samuel thinks that Arsenal should ‘expect more commitment’ from Benjamin White after the defender admitted he doesn’t watch football.
Martin Samuel never misses an opportunity if it gives him to chance to both talk sh**e and slam Arsenal and with White’s comments, he thinks he’s hit the jackpot.
Speaking last week, White told Sky Sports, “No, I never watched football when I was younger, still don’t now.
“I just loved the game, I was always playing it – never watching it. So I don’t know too much about older generations.
“I know [Vieira] was a very good player. But I wouldn’t know the details.
“I’m quite busy, I’m always doing something. I watch myself for analytical reasons. I watch England, maybe. I just wouldn’t just sit down and watch a game.
“It’s so intense, you come in every day and give 100 per cent,” he added. “All I want to do is go home and not think about it.
“Come in fresh and ready to give 100 per cent again.”
This has irked Martin Samuel enough that he has devoted part of his double-page Daily Mail column to it, giving it nearly half a page, although admittedly most of that is taken up with a large picture of White so that Samuel didn’t have to strain himself too much.
‘Some players,’ Samuel writes, ‘always preferred playing to watching,’ before he realises he’s kinda shooting down his own argument before it begins and starts listing players who were so amazing they didn’t need to – like Jimmy Greaves and Jamie Carragher.
‘Mere mortals,’ he continues, ‘need to work hard and study.’ On that point, how many journalism textbooks or courses do you think Samuel has been on since he left uni in the 1700s?
Samuel even refers to Benjamin as ‘Ben’ after the player, in the very same interview, said that wasn’t his name.
That shows you how much commitment Samuel has to his trade. He can’t even absorb all the relevant information from a single conversation that he’s writing about.
Samuel finishes by saying, “Arsenal paid £50million for White. They are entitled to expect more commitment.”
Every day, White says in his interview, he ‘gives 100%’.
Football, as Samuel has often been keen to point out when it suited his bias, is a job to these men.
As long as White is giving 100% at his job, what he chooses to do with his free time is up to him.
Unless Samuel spends hours upon hours studying journalism when he clocks off from the Mail’s offices, he probably should just shut up.