Leeds United captain Liam Cooper has revealed that he advised Brighton loanee Ben White to be persistent after the 22-year-old struggled to adjust to life under Marcelo Bielsa initially.
The Yorkshire-based club received a heavy blow early on in the summer after star defender Pontus Jansson left Elland Road to join Leeds' league rivals Brentford.
In turn, Brighton youngster White, who was signed by the Peacocks on a season-long loan at the start of the transfer window, was tasked with filling the void left by the Swedish centre-back.
With Leeds short on centre-backs and Gaetano Berardi suffering an injury, White was forced to go straight into the side's back four for their season opener against Bristol City.
Missing the team's pre-season tour to Australia and having little to no time to strike up a partnership with defensive partner Cooper saw the 22-year-old endure a difficult start to his spell at Elland Road.
Sensing the Brighton loanee's struggles, Cooper came to White's aid. The Leeds skipper has now lifted the lid on what he advised his team-mate to do during his difficult period.
“Ben’s only come in this season and he’ll tell you himself the first two weeks he struggled to get to grips with it and I was saying to him ‘just stick with it, just stick with it’", Cooper said at a recent Q&A session at Elland Road.
“It was the first game against Bristol we said if we get it right we’ll just be knocking balls down to Kalvin [Phillips] in midfield because the press is so good from the top and he said to me after the game I was right.”
White has started each of Leeds' 16 league games this season, helping them keep clean sheets in eight of them.
