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Tottenham make enquiry to Brighton over Ben White as £35m bid is rejected

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According to Duncan Wright of The Sun, Tottenham have made an enquiry to Brighton & Hove Albion over Ben White and may have to battle Leeds United, Liverpool, Manchester United, Leicester City and Chelsea to procure his signature. The 22-year-old impressed on loan at Leeds United last season and now has his pick of clubs to join this summer.

How good is White?

Pretty good, based on his performances at Leeds. But White hasn’t made an impact at his parent club. He’s only made two appearances in all competitions for Brighton since joining from Southampton in 2014.

The 22-year-old has made 51 appearances on loan at Newport County (August 1, 2017 – May 31, 2018), 16 appearances on loan Peterborough United (January 3, 2019 – May 31, 2019) and 49 appearances on loan at Leeds (July 1, 2019 – July 31, 2020).

White made a real name for himself at Elland Road, making 46 Championship appearances, scoring one goal and making two assists.

He won 129/249 aerial duels, completed 84.6% of his 2583 passes, made 29/39 successful dribbles, took 19 shots with 21% hitting the target, blocked 59 crosses/passes/shots, made 122 clearances, averaged a tackle (74) or interception (116) every 22 minutes and was dribbled past once every 180 minutes last season, as per WhoScored.

Leeds are struggling to turn the move permanent, however. United have had a £35m bid rejected this summer, so White’s lofty asking price might be a stumbling block.

How much will he cost?

The Sun say Brighton are requesting £50m for White, a player that has only featured twice in their first-team – EFL Cup win over Colchester United (August 9, 2016) and EFL Cup win over Oxford United (August 23, 2016). That may be too steep for Tottenham given our revenue has taken a big hit due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

If we’re having to sell the likes of Danny Rose, Serge Aurier, Juan Foyth, Cameron Carter-Vickers to generate funds for Jan Vertonghen’s replacement, it’s hard to see us making a move for White.

Brighton’s Lewis Dunk, Inter Milan’s Milan Skriniar, Beijing Guoan’s Kim Min-jae, Sevilla’s Diego Carlos, Schalke 04’s Ozan Kabak, Celtic’s Kristoffer Ajer, Norwich City’s Ben Godfrey and SC Freiburg’s Robin Koch are on our radar this summer, so we may need to turn our attentions elsewhere.

In other news, Tottenham may have to pay €35m and €4.48m-a-year in wages to sign RB Leipzig’s midfielder

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Sports journalist who is an avid football fan, enjoys debunking transfer rumours, loves to write pieces about players out in the cold and takes a large amount of pride getting a predicted XI 100% correct.