White ready for top table after lower-tier education
Harsenal’s £50m recruit will not be fazed after meticulous development by Brighton that saw him climb up league ladder
For Peterborough United, it was the longest of long shots. Ben White had been their player for only a few months, making 16 appearances on loan from Brighton, but they simply could not let him go back to his parent club without at least posing the question. Was there any chance, they asked, of them being able to buy White on a permanent basis?
Brighton’s answer was resounding. “They did not want to sell,” Barry Fry, Peterborough’s director of football, says. “He was magnificent for us. A class above.
“We even tried to loan him again, but they told us Leeds had come in for him.”
For Peterborough, that was that. For White, however, it was just the next step in a career that has been meticulously planned and impressively executed. The spell in League One came after a season in League Two, at Newport County.
The next year it was the Championship with Leeds United, and then it was back to Brighton in the Premier League. With every season, another step up. “A great way to develop a player,” Fry says.
White’s latest move is the biggest yet. His transfer to Arsenal this summer, for £50million, represents one of the Premier League’s most interesting transfers and brings a new level of scrutiny to a player who has spent just one year in the top flight.
Tonight, as he makes his competitive Arsenal debut at Brentford, he will know that the eyes of the world will be on him.
Fortunately for White, and indeed for Arsenal, he can handle it. Talk to those who know White and they will describe the 23-year-old in the same way: unflappable. “Completely unruffled,” Fry says.
It is the same off the field as on it. Calmness and composure are standout features of White’s game, and his ability to use the ball under pressure is a key part of his appeal to Mikel Arteta, his new manager.
Brighton saw White’s technical skill when he was just 16, even if Southampton were not persuaded. “We had watched Ben and he did not get a contract at Southampton, so he had a trial with us,” John Morling, Brighton’s academy manager, says. “He did well. He had a good physical shape and technically he was good.”
White’s development from there is testament to his determination and professionalism (“he got the best out of his body,” Morling explains), and also to the work of the entire academy set-up at Brighton. Recruitment staff, medical departments, strength trainers and coaches all played their part in creating a £50million player, and the transfer fee is rightly regarded as a triumph for the club as a collective. The size of Arsenal’s investment does not bother White, and it will not change him. After all, he did not decide how much he is worth. And, to put it mildly, he has dealt with bigger problems than a hefty price tag.
As a child, he battled life-threatening illnesses as his immune system struggled. His appendix came out when he was only seven. A pivotal moment in White’s journey was his loan move to Newport in 2017. He was 19 at the time and Brighton wanted him to experience life in a first-team environment. They also wanted his aerial ability to be tested by the uncompromising, pointyelbowed forwards who thrive in the lower divisions. “You could see the potential he had in the very first training session,” says Michael Flynn, Newport’s manager. “The way he conducted himself, the way he read the game, the way he moved. “There was no ego and he is still the same humble and level-headed young man that he was then.” Next up for White, after Newport, was Peterborough in League One and then the move to Leeds, where he announced himself on a bigger stage.
“No one could have foreseen the elevation of his career at Leeds,” Morling says. “The courage and the belief that Marcelo [Bielsa] showed in Ben, alongside the staff at Leeds, he took it and ran with it.”
White played every minute of their Championship-winning season and Leeds tried to sign him permanently afterwards, offering £25 million last summer. Brighton, once again, said no.
It was during White’s spell at Leeds that he appeared on Arsenal’s radar. The analytics team took notice, spotting the fearless youngster who had taken the Championship by storm.
He threw himself into life as a Brighton first-team player, starting 36 of 38 league matches last season and showing Arsenal (and indeed England, who called him into their Euros squad) that he is capable of performing at the highest level.
The sales pitch from Arteta was compelling. It is a theme of his managerial career that he has been able to convince young players to buy into his project in north London, and White was excited by what he heard.
White joins Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe and Kieran Tierney as a key member of the new core. In his few weeks as an Arsenal player, White has formed friendships with the likes of Tierney, Rob Holding and Calum Chambers, and he grew close to Saka during the Euros. He is self-sufficient away from the club, declining Arsenal’s offer to put him in a hotel before he moves into a new house, and is instead renting for now.
The next test is Brentford, and then a full season with Arsenal. There will be moments of difficulty for a young defender at a turbulent club, but he has been signed for years rather than months.
For White, there is nothing to fear. This is just the next step up for a player who gets better every year.