Ben White’s Privacy Should Be Respected – Gareth Southgate

England manager, Gareth Southgate has come out to insist that Ben White left the England camp for personal reasons. He recently played down suggestions of a bust-up between the White and his assistant coach, Steve Holland, and fans have been reacting.

According to him, the Arsenal defender left the England camp in Qatar for personal reasons and he specifically asked for his privacy to be respected.

Southgate added that the article that gave the bust-up reason also used the word “alleged,” so the writer didn’t feel strongly enough that it was fact.

His words, “As far as I am aware, the article that was written used words like ‘alleged’ and so whoever wrote it didn’t feel strongly enough that it was correct.”

“Ben left for personal reasons. We made that very clear and I think especially in this day and age it is very important that a situation like that is respected.”

On Sterling, “I’ve spoken briefly with Raheem at training and then I need to pick up with him again later because we’ve had other things going on but it is great that he’s back with us, first and foremost,”

“He wanted to train today. Normally we wouldn’t do that having been on a long flight but it was a lighter session so no risk with doing that. He will be involved tomorrow but what that looks like, I’ve got to decide because I’ve not been able to see him on the training pitch so it is hard to tell what the level is.”

“He’s not been with us, in terms of being on the pitch, since Saturday. So we’ll just have to assess that but really pleased he’s back and of course he is an important player for us.”