By Bruce Watson

11th Mar, 2021 | 12:05pm

Leeds must forget underperforming Ben White to develop further

Links between Ben White and Leeds United need to stop before the summer transfer window as a move more him simply doesn’t make sense anymore. 

We were all disappointed when the club failed to re-sign the defender last summer as Brighton increased their asking price to a simply ludicrous degree.

We can see why they did this now though as the 23-year-old has played a huge role in their season.

A season which even by Brighton’s standards is looking like a failure and it could end in relegation for the south coast strugglers.

White has started all but one of Brighton’s Premier League games this season and as the Seagulls now find themselves in 17th place in the table, it doesn’t seem like he’s covered himself in glory.

Of course, we can’t just judge White on Brighton’s league position, so we’ve compared his stats for the season with those of our very own Liam Cooper.

Cooper has outperformed White in every key defensive stat so far this season.

According to Wyscout, Cooper has won 74.9% of his defensive duels this season while White has only won 65.2% of his.

Similarly, Cooper has won more challenges in the air winning 63.2% of his aerial duels compared to White’s 52.1%.

These stats aren’t even close, there is a significant gap in performance here and this trend continues.

White has only been successful with 33.3% of his sliding tackles while Cooper has won 53.3% of his, another huge gap.

Cooper also makes more interceptions per 90 (5.12) than White (4.11) and the same can be said for clearances with the players averaging 2.65 and 1.06 clearances per 90 minutes respectively. (Wyscout)

This all ties into our main point.

Why should we re-sign White when we already have players who perform better than him?

Yes, White still has time to develop as a younger player and he may improve to the point where he can match Cooper.

But if we are to develop as a club we need quality players through the door this summer, we already have plenty of young talented players and we need to beef out the squad with players who will make an impact straight away.

The only caveat we would add is that if Brighton get relegated and their asking price for White drops significantly then our opinion might change.

But until that happens, we’d rather we spent the money elsewhere this summer.

In other Leeds United news, this emerging Chelsea star could tear us apart at the weekend.