Benjamin White is the defender Arsenal always needed

£50m is a substantial amount of money. The most Arsenal have ever spent on a defender, the most expensive Englishman in the club’s history and their third highest ever outlay on a single player. Benjamin White may turn out to be more than worth it.

It may always be the case that Arsenal overpaid. All the relevant ‘taxes’ that came with his acquisition – homegrown and it being an in-league deal – were added to by Brighton’s comfortable selling stance. They were under zero pressure to sell and could set their stall out high.

The biggest compliment that you can pay White is that he is starting to look like a £50m defender.

With the ongoing William Saliba farce and the decision not to sell Granit Xhaka over the summer to reinvest in the midfield, greater emphasis was placed on White’s acquisition. Keeping money in frame or putting it aside, he’s proving to be the perfect addition to this football team.

Benjamin White is the defender Arsenal always needed and he’s starting to show it alongside Gabriel after a brilliant display vs Aston Villa

Selecting the best centre-back of the Emirates era is one of the easier on-the-spot questions to ask of an Arsenal supporter: Laurent Koscielny wins that be a landslide. The Frenchman had versatile and dynamic defending ability, picking and choosing his moments intelligently, and consistently matching a high level of performance in red and white.

There is some way to go for White to be hitting such heights over an extended period of time. For all his finer qualities on show, sample size reigns supreme.

But the impact White is making on this team bears resemblance to that of someone he will openly admit he knows little about. Reading the game as he does, his athleticism and pace (an unfairly overlooked strength of Koscielny’s) is pivotal to the speed with which Arsenal can operate. Opposition attacks break down as soon as they begin.

Timing his interceptions as efficiently as he does springs from an understanding his body’s capabilities. His positioning in defensive transition and front-footed approach with his back to goal make his craft look easy. An almost arrogant composure across the grass exudes an authority that rubs off on his teammates.

Gabriel has needed the perfect partner alongside him, just as White now has the perfect partner in Gabriel. Their respective levels have reached such a point where even the most minor of errors are exacerbated due to the rarity of their occurrence.

Able to shift between the technical delivery of accurate switches and marauding carries from one box to another over to last-ditch blocks and tackles in his own box, the completeness of White’s ability is tremendous.

Arsenal were a breathless pressing unit against Aston Villa and White’s role in clearing up Villa’s direct routes to the forwards before transitioning back into attack maintained the momentum throughout. Gabriel did this too.

With White it is the effortless application of his role in the team that really stands out. Not the physical profile of his Brazilian teammate, how he conducts himself emits an authority of guile as opposed to one of fear. He’s confident, somewhat cocky, and accomplished. Tougher tests will come in the Premier League but you back him to face them head on.

Not only did Mikel Arteta need a technically dominating central defender, he needed the profile to suit his already physically commanding central defender. In White he looks to have acquired just that.

Let this be the start of a fruitful career. Gareth Southgate can’t omit him from England squads any longer based on what we’re seeing.