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Brighton boss on Ben White’s chances of starting against Chelsea

Brighton manager Graham Potter has hinted that Ben White could make his Premier League debut against Chelsea this evening.

The 22-year-old centre-back recently signed a new contract with the Seagulls after much speculation around his future.

White spent last season on loan at Leeds and after helping the Whites secure promotion to the Premier League, they made numerous attempts to sign him permanently this summer.

However Brighton stood firm and rejected bids of up to £25m for their academy product, and now he could be in line for his top-flight debut.

When questioned about White’s chances of starting against Chelsea, Potter said: “We always have to make selections based on what you see and how players are and that’s always an evolving process, so you have to take all those things in hand.

“But he has not shown any signs of any problems. He didn’t change his ways when there was lots of speculation around, before we signed his contract to after.

“There’s been no change in behaviour, he’s been great from day one, quite calm with everything – and then you just have to let all the noise from the outside go, and in the end you just work.”

Potter also added that despite all the talk about White’s future, the player himself has remained calm and is preparing for the challenge of playing Premier League football.

“There’s a lot of fuss about the lad from outside,” said Potter. “There’s nothing you can do to control that, because it fills newspapers and it is something to write in the transfer window. All that sort of stuff.

“Like I said, we know the progress that he has been making, we know the qualities that he has. We also know that rightly he is making the step up from the Championship to the Premier League, and from our experience of that, it is not so straightforward.

“Regardless of what anybody thinks, we know there will be some challenges, we know there will be some ups and downs for him. That is part of being a young player, part of being a player making those steps to get to where he wants to get to.”

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