Ipswich Town Reunite With Julio Enciso as Gary O'Neil's Overhaul Takes Shape

Ipswich Town have reached an agreement to sign Paraguay forward Julio Enciso from Strasbourg, reuniting the 22-year-old with a club he already knows and a manager he has already impressed for BBC Sport.

Enciso spent six months on loan at Portman Road from Brighton in early 2025, arriving on 23 January and wearing the number nine shirt. That stint gave Ipswich fans a first look at a player who arrived in English football as a teenager with a reputation for spectacular long-range strikes. Now he is coming back, this time on a permanent deal.

The connection that matters most here is the one with the dugout. Gary O'Neil — appointed Ipswich manager this summer after previous posts at Bournemouth and Wolves — managed Enciso at Strasbourg last season and pushed hard for an early reunion, according to BBC Sport. When a manager wants a player badly enough to accelerate a transfer before the season starts, it usually tells you the player fits the system.

The fee has not been disclosed, but those involved believe it will account for a sizeable portion of Ipswich's remaining transfer budget BBC Sport. Strasbourg paid £13.8m for Enciso last summer, giving a rough sense of the financial territory. Strasbourg, for context, share ownership with Chelsea through the BlueCo group — a multi-club structure that has become increasingly common in European football, where a single ownership group controls teams in different leagues.

Enciso is the latest arrival in what has been a transformative window for Ipswich. The club have made ten major signings this summer, including Daizen Maeda from Celtic, Abdul Fatawu from Leicester City, and club-record signing Emersonn from Toulouse at £24m BBC Sport. That is a lot of new faces to integrate before the competitive fixtures begin, and O'Neil will have barely a week to gel his squad before the real tests start.

Ipswich open their Premier League campaign at home to Sunderland on 22 August BBC Sport.

For fans, the Enciso deal carries a familiar warmth — a player who has already worn the shirt, cheered the crowd, and learned the way to the stadium. The difference this time is that he arrives as a permanent signing, not a loanee passing through. O'Neil's faith in him, forged over a full season in France, suggests the manager sees a ready-made piece for the puzzle he is building. Whether ten new signings can click in time for opening day is the question everyone at Portman Road is quietly asking.