News on Wednesday that once highly promising attacking midfielder Julio Enciso is set to “join the BlueCo project” and spend a year at RC Strasbourg before moving up to Chelsea next summer.
Now we’re cooking with multi-club fire!
It’s not exactly clear what this means in traditional terms, but we’re all out of loan spots at RCSA, so Enciso would have to be actually transferring to our sister club this summer from Brighton (shock), before then moving between BlueCo entities next summer.
The numbers involved are reportedly only around £12m (€16m) — obviously Strasbourg cannot exactly afford big fees even with multi-club wizardry — though I’m sure if things work out as expected, the fee for the move to Chelsea next summer will be significantly higher.
Enciso joined Brighton for around £10m in 2022 from his native Paraguay and had a very impressive debut campaign as a teenager with the Seagulls, making 26 appearances and scoring 4 goals, one of which was chosen as the Premier League Goal of the Season for 2022-23. One of the other three was the winner against Chelsea at the Bridge. (He also made his Premier League debut against us in the reverse fixture, so it’s been practically written in the stars.)
Unfortunately, Enciso suffered a major knee injury (torn meniscus) a few weeks into the following season, and things have not been the same since. He struggled to regain his spot at Brighton and spent the second half of last season on loan at Ipswich Town (he did score against us, again, and also collected an assist in the 2-2 draw at the Bridge). But his season ended with yet another surgery on the same knee, to try to clear up some scar tissue and reduce the recurring pain. He’s currently rehabbing from that and is not expected to return to action for a couple more months yet.
So, a reclamation project in more ways than one. Perhaps we will indeed see him in Chelsea Blue, though I think a lot of pieces still have to fall into place for that to actually happen.