Liverpool journalist Ben Kelly has made a transfer claim on Brighton & Hove Albion defender Ben White.
This comes after Kelly recently made an appearance on The Redmen TV Podcast to talk about a range of topics concerning the Merseyside club.
On the subject of potentially signing a centre-back this summer to replace Dejan Lovren, who recently joined Zenit Saint Petersburg for £10.9m on a three-year contract, Kelly spoke about a possible move for the Brighton defender.
He said: “For me, I think we do look at the likes of [Ki-Jana] Hoever now, or you look at someone like Ben White at Brighton, but the problem that we’ve got is that Brighton didn’t go down, so he’s English and he’s probably going to be a lot more expensive because they’re still a Premier League side.
“If they had gone down this season, you might have been able to get Ben White on a bit of a cut price, because he’s probably at the level now after a good season at Leeds, he’s probably at the level now where he’s ready to play Premier League football, and it probably would have been ideal, because he’s quite young and he would have been happy to be the fourth-choice centre-back at this stage, but he’s probably going to be £30-£40 million now and you don’t know, with the pandemic and all that, whether we’re going to spend £30-£40 million for a potentially fourth-choice centre-back.”
Will Liverpool sign a defender this summer?
Yes
No
The 22-year-old, who is currently valued at £4.95 million according to Transfermarkt, has spent the entirety of the 2019/20 season on loan at Leeds United where he helped them win promotion back to the Premier League.
In his season on loan at Elland Road, White played in every single minute of Leeds’ league matches, earning himself an impressive season rating of 7.09/10 (per WhoScored).
TIF Thoughts…
Given how impressive and prominent White has been for Leeds this season, it comes as no surprise that his name has now been mentioned as a potential signing for Liverpool to replace Lovren with.
It will be interesting to see what Brighton do with White this season, as they could keep him in their squad, send him off on another loan deal or possibly sell him altogether.