Leeds' Ben White: EFL future star
Andrews: "The thing that sticks out is what he does on the ball and the comparisons in recent seasons are John Stones, Rio Ferdinand when he was a young player"
Tuesday 19 May 2020 10:45, UK
Ben White is set to be a future star in English football after impressing for Leeds during a loan spell from Brighton.
Here, Sky Sports' EFL pundits Keith Andrews and Andy Hinchcliffe assess the 22-year-old's attributes and tell us why he is such a special talent...
In Marcelo Bielsa, has he found the right coach at the right time?
Andrews: I think so. I think the way he's gone about his career, the way he's been advised by whoever is around him, but also Brighton Football Club have got this path perfect for him. The steps he's taken in his career, for me, has been nigh-on perfect. Go to Newport, earn your stripes. Get beat up a little bit in League Two because it's more physical.
Next step, Peterborough. More of a ball-playing League One side where risks are taken at the back - they are renowned for it. Then it's the Litmus test. If you go to Leeds United, you have to replace Pontus Jansson who is a cult hero at that football club. How do you react week in, week out to playing at that type of level, that type of intensity and he's passed them all with flying colours.
Hinchcliffe: You look at what Bielsa has done for every player at Leeds. He's revolutionised how they play, how they think about the game as well. Look at Kalvin Phillips. Ben White will be challenged mentally as well as physically because it's a hard regime Bielsa runs but he'll also ask a lot of questions of him tactically. He's played him in midfield; remember Guardiola did that with John Stones and Stones didn't look completely comfortable with that whereas White - OK, it is the Championship - wasn't fazed by that because he's working on his intelligence, his spacial awareness.
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It's very difficult for a centre-half. I know what it's like as a full-back stepping into midfield; the picture changes completely. White stepping into midfield looked like a midfield player. So again, coming into the stage of development he's in, the timing of working with someone so intense, so experienced, he'll learn so much. Graham Potter must be thinking this is brilliant. He's out playing successful football with Leeds, he might well get them promoted, he comes back to me a better player because he's been working under Bielsa.
Do his attributes make him comparable to any previous Premier League defenders?
Andrews: I think when you look at the profile of him as a centre-half, the thing that sticks out is what he does on the ball and the comparisons maybe in recent seasons are John Stones, Rio Ferdinand when he was a young player. That elegant way they have of stepping out from the back and picking the right passes more often than not.
Hinchcliffe: I totally agree with Stones and Ferdinand but also, you put a bit of John Terry or Gary Cahill in there, which I think he's got, imagine the centre-half. I would say, if you've got a centre-forward on the edge of the box, looking to drill a ball goalwards, is he going to throw himself in the way? And he will throw himself in the way. He doesn't just see himself as a ball-playing centre-half.
You are putting pressure on a player who is well thought of anyway but you start thinking Stones, Ferdinand, Cahill, Terry, people start thinking this guy is the new Franz Beckenbauer. He's earned his stripes in the lower leagues and I think that's hugely beneficial to him but clearly the talent that he's got, he's a Premier League footballer and he needs to play against Sergio Aguero, Harry Kane. He needs to play against these world-class centre-forwards because Premier League centre-forwards are a different animal compared to anything else he's faced.
After his loan spell at Leeds, can he make it into the Brighton team?
Andrews: For me, he'll be in that Brighton team next season without a shadow of a doubt because with the market the way it's probably going to go in the summer, I don't think they will get the price that would make them sell. When you look at the profile again, what attributes has he got? He's Graham Potter's type of centre-half. We've seen it in his Ostersunds side, we've seen it at Swansea and the centre-half he bought at Brighton, Webster, has similar types of characteristics, so you can tell the type of centre-half he likes. I would imagine Ben White fits really nicely into that.
Hinchcliffe: To me, he's a Premier League player playing in the Championship. He's 22-years-old and the next step is into Brighton's first team and the way that Graham Potter likes to play at Brighton. If you look at the centre-halves he's got there - Lewis Dunk is a great example. He's a ball-playing centre-half who can spray passes but he's brave and reads the game well.
I see him as that kind of Lewis Dunk centre-half who fits in at Brighton. He needs Premier League experience now. I would be amazed if he stays at Leeds. This type of talent is very, very rare; he ticks all the boxes so why would you let him go anywhere else, even for a really silly £40-50 million? Man City are probably looking at him as well. Unless the money is astronomical, I feel he has to go into Brighton's first team and play in the Premier League now. That's the next step he needs to make. And If Ben White isn't in an England squad in the next three years, I'd be incredibly surprised.
