Arsenal hero Nigel Winterburn admits he finds the mystery around Ben White's release from England's World Cup squad "confusing".

The Gunners defender was cut loose by England's camp with little explanation. However, the Daily Star and ESPN would later report of a row with England assistant coach Steve Holland over match preparation contributing to the decision.

For the moment, neither England nor Arsenal have offered any detail, while White returned to training in Dubai last week.

For Winterburn, while there has been speculation around the situation, he's confident it won't become a distraction for Arsenal, nor White, once the season resumes this week.

Speaking to Tribalfootball.com on behalf of FreeSuperTips, the Gunners title winner said: "Confusing is the best word I can use.

“I'm still not completely sure what happened, I haven't heard anything from Arteta. I think everybody wants to move on, I think until we get a defining answer to the question - why did he leave - will we ever get that, I'm not sure we will.

“It's one of those, if he's had a big fall out and then you feel that you are not integrating, not part of the squad, then mentally it can become very difficult.

“I think for me it's hard to talk about something when we still haven't had a full explanation of what's happened, I think we need to be a little bit careful of what we say when we're actually not aware of the full facts.

“Whether England will disclose that in the future, or whether Arsenal will, then I have doubts, so I think once the Premier League starts, no one will care anymore and everyone will just get on with it.

“Looking in from the outside, it looked strange, but we don't know all the details."