Rice to lead White charm offensive in hope of England U-turn

Rice will captain England against Belgium and plans to speak with White about whether his mind could be changed

Declan Rice plans to speak with Arsenal team-mate Ben White over his self-imposed England exile.
Telegraph Sport last week revealed that White’s decision to step away from the England set up came after a barbed comment from Gareth Southgate’s assistant Steve Holland at the World Cup in Qatar in 2022.
White asked to leave the England camp in Qatar and made himself unavailable for selection for the friendlies against Brazil and Belgium, despite the defender’s excellent form for Arsenal.
An injury to Kyle Walker may well have put White in the frame to start against Belgium on Tuesday night, but his absence is likely to hand another opportunity to Aston Villa’s Ezri Konsa at right-back.
Rice will captain England for the first time in what will be his 50th appearance for the Three Lions against Belgium and admitted that he hopes White will change his mind.
“When I go back (to Arsenal), I’ll speak to him and see, but hopefully he does change his mind on that,” said Rice. “Because having a player like that, in the squad who’s performing well in the Premier League it’d be a great addition to the squad.
“Ben, if you know him as a person and as a player like I do, he’s such a good guy. He’s such a good guy and he’s an unbelievable footballer.
“Gareth, dealt with it this week, spoke about it. We’ve obviously not been going into the training grounds, so I haven’t spoken to Ben on a one to one level about it.
“It’s hard to know really, what’s going on. Obviously, Ben made this decision. Obviously, he doesn’t want to play for England at this moment in time.
“Playing for England is the greatest honour you could ever have. So hopefully, with the quality that he has and the quality he can bring to this side that we can get him back in.
“The good thing about him as well, he can play as a centre-back, he can play at right-back, he can come inside and play like a second midfielder, which has been doing a bit at Arsenal lately, he’s got the quality to play anywhere.
“When you have a player like that in a squad who can be used in different positions, it’s really key. So hopefully, he changes his mind. But if he’s happy doing that, then you know, that’s Ben’s decision. We can’t argue with that and hopefully, like I said, he changes his mind.”