Southampton have had many hits on the transfer front over modern times, but one player who slipped agonisingly through the club’s fingers is Ben White, who plied his formative years as a footballer within the Saints’ esteemed academy.
Notable graduates from Testwood include Gareth Bale, Luke Shaw and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, with James Ward-Prowse arguably the Saints’ most coveted figure in recent months after rising through the ranks and emerging as one of the Premier League’s greatest-ever set piece specialists.
The Hampshire outfit have also shown on past occasions that there is an aptitude in nurturing talent and turning over a seismic profit, with Sadio Mane, the aforementioned Shaw and Virgil van Dijk all sold for mammoth fees to bolster the club’s ranks.
The latter represents one of the club’s greatest-ever coups, signing from Scottish giants Celtic for just £13m in 2015 and being sold to Liverpool for a remarkable £75m less than two-and-a-half years later.
Another player formerly on the Saints’ books is Arsenal’s Ben White, with the dynamic defender leaving Southampton for fellow south coast club Brighton & Hove Albion at just 16 years of age after being released by the former.
Was it a mistake to let Ben White go?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and so often in the rigorous world of professional football, youth players fail to make the grade with a certain academy, only to forge a successful career for themselves elsewhere.
White is an embodiment of this, and while he was deemed surplus to requirements during his formative years at Southampton, his meteoric growth into one of English football’s superlative defenders is a reminder that development is not linear.
As displayed above, White grew into a £50m player during his time with Brighton and Leeds United, where he spent a season on loan in the Championship and was instrumental in the Whites’ monumental return to the Premier League after 16 years outside the top flight.
Indeed, Arsenal swooped for the ace for the aforementioned amount in 2021, and he is now an integral part in a team challenging for the league title, and his ascension to prominence must sting badly for those who allowed him to depart Southampton as a teenager.
As per FBref, the “complete” 25-year-old (as hailed by his manager Mikel Arteta) ranks among the top 4% of positional peers in Europe’s five main leagues for progressive passes, the top 13% for pass completion and the top 13% for clearances. For a Saints team currently bottom of the Premier League and beset with one of the division’s worst defensive records, the folly of his departure all those years ago is only compounded.
While not bearing too much resemblance to Van Dijk in terms of playing style, there are some notable similarities between the two other than their St Mary’s connection and subsequent big-money transfers.
As per FBref, the two have similar returns per game for assists (0.05 v 0.04, White first), interceptions (1.33 v 1.34), ball recoveries (5.47 v 5.59) and progressive passes (4.44 v 4.6), marking both of them out as centre-backs who can win back possession for their team and use the ball intelligently.
Southampton have indeed got a lot right on the transfer front since returning to the Premier League in 2012, but blundering on White could be a deal which haunts the club in the coming months. Relegation lurks around the corner, and both the money which could have been plundered from White’s eventual sale had he remained with the Saints, or indeed his dynamic defensive skill set, could have been invaluable to the currently struggling crop.
As it is, they can do little but rue his premature departure, and battle furiously against the ever-increasing threat of dropping out of a league for which White could have a winner’s medal in three months’ time (and Van Dijk already has).
