Ben White – What we learnt from his England debut
Tommy Cook. Peter Ward. Steve Foster. Lewis Dunk. Ben White has joined a very exclusive club after becoming the fifth Brighton player to represent England when making his debut for the Three Lions as a second half substitute against Austria.
White’s rise to full international has been quite the journey. Seven years ago, he was released as a 16-year-old by Southampton. Three years ago, he was readying himself for a season on-loan in League Two with Newport County.
Spells in League One with Peterborough United and the Championship with 1996 Coca Cola League Cup runners up The Leeds United followed. White then enjoyed an excellent first campaign as a Premier League player with the Albion in 2020-21, culminating in him being a surprise inclusion in Gareth Southgate’s provisional squad for Euro 2020 (in 2021).
White may not be going to his first international tournament, but Southgate has been impressed enough to hand him 19 minutes of action in England’s first warm up match at the Riverside Stadium.
Despite the brevity of his time on the pitch, White still managed to make quite an impression. Here is what we could take away from the proud moment when Ben White represented England for the first time.
Southgate values White’s versatility
Brighton fans know how versatile White is. Graham Potter has deployed him as the right sided centre back and the central figure in a three-man defence, as a traditional right back or centre back in a back four, a right wing back, and in the centre of midfield in 2020-21 to varying degrees of success.
Against Austria, White made his debut in the middle of the park having replaced 2016 Olympic diving silver medallist Jack Grealish. For Southgate to give White an international bow in a position many would think is not actually his strongest suggests that England have been seriously impressed with his flexibility this season and since he arrived in the squad last week.
Like Potter, Southgate values versatility. He has justified selecting 23 different right backs in his Euro 2020 (in 2021) squad by pointing out that Kyle Walker, Reece James, Kieran Trippier and Trent Alexander-Arnold can also fulfil different roles in the team. Southgate talks about taking the best 26 players in the country to the tournament rather than looking solely at positions.
This is the music to the ears of a player like White with the ability to cover multiple roles. He was even given an unexpected chance to show Southgate the depths of his versatility when Alexander-Arnold limped off with minutes to play and White dropped back into defence to help England see the game out via a clean sheet.
White showed his defensive ability with THAT block
It was whilst White was covering for Alexander-Arnold that he had his most impressive moment of England 1-0 Austria. Jordan Pickford ended up in a heap on the ground after attempting to punch clear and when Alessandro Schopf hit a low effort back towards goal, it was White who had the wherewithal to get back, cover for his goalkeeper and make a goal line clearance.
No Brighton fan could have missed the irony of White expertly doing something that Lewis Dunk has made a career of, Dunk of course having run over Southgate’s cat or something to be constantly overlooked for England selection despite being the Albion’s best defender for four Premier League seasons now.
Part of the reason that Southgate may have continually ignored Dunk – controversial opinion here – is because he did not actually do anything on his one England appearance, a 3-0 win over the United States in November 2018.
That was hardly Dunk’s fault… Fishergate Flyers Under 7s would have given England a tougher game that evening than the US managed. If Southgate though is basing his selection on contributions on the pitch in a Three Lions shirt, then White’s clearance will not have gone unnoticed.
It secured the win and helped ensure there were not too many awkward questions about what would otherwise have been a tepid 1-1 draw against limited opponents.
White can be an attacking threat
One of the most enjoyable things about watching White play is the way he often charges forward to join attacks. We saw that most notably when Brighton beat champions Manchester City 3-2 at the Amex and White was only denied a first goal in Albion colours by two excellent City blocks from rasping 25 yard volleys.
On his England debut, Ben White nearly had his first international goal within a couple of minutes of his introduction. The ball fell to him on the edge of the Austria box and he put a volley similar to those efforts against Guardiola’s Great Sportswashing Project which finised up not far wide of the Austria goal.
Imagine if we have spent 38 games of the 2020-21 season becoming increasingly bewildered by Brighton’s ability to miss open goals from five yards out, and then White went and twatted one in the top corner from 30 yards on his first England appearance. Classic Brighton.
White would be a better option than Tyrone Mings
Yes, Tyrone Mings is left footed which means he brings balance to the England back line. But could anyone other than those wearing the claret and blue tinted spectacles of 1982 European Cup winners Aston Villa say that he looked good enough to be starting in an international tournament for England following a chastening 90 minutes against Austria?
The BBC described Mings as being far from impressive. Phil McNulty wrote that: “Mings was fortunate to escape a moment of recklessness in the first half when he appeared to drive his arm straight into Austria striker Sasa Kalajdzic in the area, flattening him in an incident that was missed by the referee.”
That was not Mings’ only hairy moment. He nearly conceded a penalty when the ball hit him on the arm in the box. Earlier, he completely stopped playing, thinking England were about to be awarded a free kick and letting a pass from Pickford go straight under his foot to gift Austria what would have been an easy chance.
Fortunately for Mings, the referee took pity of the Villa defender’s ignorance of the age-old rule of playing to the whistle and stopped the game as both Mings and Pickford engaged in a game of finger pointing over what was nearly a catastrophic cock up.
Conor Coady gets a load of bad press from Albion fans, but here at WAB Towers we quite like the Wolves captain. Mings on the other hand looks like a disaster waiting to happen, especially if Harry Maguire takes longer than expected to recover from his current injury. Fingers crossed Southgate does not live to regret taking Mings over White (or Dunk).
White has a seriously good fake tan
We have been blown away by White’s fake tan this season but it was not until he made his England debut that it became clear just how good it is.
Trippier has spent the past two seasons playing in Spain with Atletico Madrid and yet even his tan supplied by the sun of the Spanish capital was not as impressive as White’s. That takes some doing.
Ben White has a future at international level
The block, the volley, the fact that Southgate trusted him to play in midfield… everything we saw at the Riverside Stadium in England 1-0 Austria points to the fact that Ben White has a future at international level – especially if England pick up a sunbed company as a sponsor and need White to be the poster boy.
Euro 2020 (in 2021) may have come just a little too soon for White but if he continues to improve at the rate he has since heading to Newport in the summer of 2017, then there is no reason why he cannot go to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Whether he is still a Brighton player by then remains to be seen. Bigger and better clubs were already monitoring the situation and him being a full England international will simply pique their interests further.
If Yves Bissouma is sold this summer as many expect, then the Albion surely do all they can to hold onto White for at least one more season. Can Brighton really afford to let go two first team regulars in one transfer window, even if the money on offer will be big?
Should Ben White stay at the Amex for 2021-22, then there is every chance he can become Brighton’s most capped England player over the course of the next year, surpassing the three appearances Steve Foster made for England in 1982.
