Thomas Tuchel has picked five Arsenal players for England's games against Croatia and Spain this month, and Ben White is back among them. The other four are Ezri Konsa, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Declan Rice and Eberechi Eze. That's more England players than the rest of the Big Six have between them, so Mikel Arteta was entitled to call the English core at his club "part of our identity". Noni Madueke has been left out for the second month running.
White has started seven Premier League games this season with five clean sheets and three assists, so this recall is built on football rather than sentiment. In March he came off the bench against Uruguay to score and concede a penalty while a section of the crowd booed him, then played an hour against Japan. White left the 2022 World Cup squad in Qatar on 30 November for personal reasons. A knee injury in Arsenal's 1-0 win at West Ham in May then ended his World Cup hopes, and it's easy to believe he might well have gone had he stayed fit. Arteta said "we know the history" and called the recall "a moment that he's earned and he needs to enjoy now".
Madueke has played regularly in Bukayo Saka's absence and has two goals and an assist in his last six appearances, which makes a second straight omission hard to justify. Tuchel said on 6 November that Madueke had been very close and that the door is still open, crediting the extra games Saka's injury has given him. Liverpool's Rio Ngumoha is one of the forwards in the squad. Very close is a hard message to sell to a player who can't do much more with the games he's getting.
Further down England's age groups, Max Dowman has his first Under-21 call-up at 16, picked by Lee Carsley for this month's friendlies against Portugal and France.
Dowman is suspended for today's game with Hull City, but Konsa is fit after coming off as a precaution at Slavia Prague and has trained on both days since.
At the same press conference Arteta said Arsenal are protecting Rice despite worries he's being played too much, even though nobody at the club has more minutes this season. Rice's five Premier League assists already equal last season's total, all of them from open play. Arteta still wants more, and he picked out Rice's "shooting ability from long range" as "something that we need to use more". He's right, and a midfielder who shoots from distance gives defences one more thing to cover. Arteta called Hull "impressive" and wants Arsenal to "attack again tomorrow right from the off" to build momentum before the break. Promoted Hull are 11th with only two defeats, so that's more than politeness before this afternoon's 3pm kick-off at the Emirates. After the break Arsenal go to Newcastle on Saturday 21 November, then host Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday 24 November.
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