David Norris has told This is Futbol that Leeds were massively interested in Brighton’s Ben White last summer but have now moved on from signing the England defender.
Having played a key role in Leeds’ long-awaited return to the Premier League in 2019-2020, Marcelo Bielsa’s men tried to bring the 23-year-old back to Elland Road permanently.
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Top-four giants Chelsea and Liverpool were also keen on signing the Brighton centre-back following his brilliant form for Leeds in the Championship, with Norris telling TIF earlier this month that Bielsa loved the player.
However, despite plenty of interest elsewhere, Potter quickly confirmed that White would be staying with Brighton, and become part of the first-team.
Perhaps unsurprisingly to those that had watched him regularly at Leeds the previous season, White continued where he left off during his loan spell in south Yorkshire, which led to him not only being named in the England squad for the Euros, but has him on the verge of a £50m summer move to Arsenal.
But Norris exclusively told This is Futbol that Leeds won’t be too disappointed not to have secured his services on a permanent basis 12 months earlier:
“I think they would have moved on; it won’t be a massive issue to them now, but they had a massive interest in him to lodge three bids.
“To not get him, it would have been disappointing at the time, especially that first season in the Premier League, they couldn’t go all out on certain players, they would have capped it at what they thought was right but won’t look back after that.”