Albion have been urged to “put an arm around” Joe Bennett and watch him blossom at the Amex.

The attack-minded left-back has made a bright start to the season on loan from Aston Villa.

Now Ian Taylor, who played 235 league games for Villa and is a club ambassador, has backed him to rebuild dented confidence in the Championship.

He believes that would be great news both for Albion and his parent club.

Taylor told The Argus: “Joe has made mistakes at a higher level and not recovered from them.

“He has taken a knock confidence-wise and he is not really in the manager’s short term plans at Villa.

“But he’s no mug. He has played for England under-21s. I think he just suffered from a loss of confidence. With time and games you will get over that.

“He needs an arm around him every once in a while and a bit of encouragement to get that confidence back.

“But there is a good player in there.

“He has got a job on to get into the Villa team but he will have a chance if he impresses the manager with what he is doing at Brighton.”