Brighton have completed the signing of French underage international Ulrick Enema Ella from Amiens for an undisclosed fee.
The deal was confirmed via the Seagulls’ official website on Tuesday and the 19-year-old will initially go into Simon Rusk’s under-23 squad at the Amex Stadium.
Eneme Ella has represented France 27 times throughout various underage grades and is a youth international team-mate of Arsenal defender William Saliba, with the duo having played together nine times for their country at underage levels.
He has yet to feature at senior level for either club or country, although he was on the bench on occasion for Amiens in their Ligue 1 relegation campaign in 2019/20.
Rusk described the 19-year-old as “an exciting young player and one who I am looking forward to adding competition to the group of attacking players we already have here at the club”.
Indeed, Eneme Ella has already featured for Brighton just hours after joining the club, getting 25 minutes off the bench for the under-23s in their EFL Trophy defeat to AFC Wimbledon. The match report for the game on the Seagulls’ official website claimed that he “certainly gave the attack a different dimension with his physicality, although he didn’t have too many opportunities to show what he can offer”.
It could be some time before Brighton fans get to see how Eneme Ella performs at first team level – with the youngster only arriving yesterday and playing in the EFL Trophy last night, he surely won’t be considered for tonight’s Carabao Cup clash against Preston.
Nonetheless, it should be intriguing to see how he fares for the under-23 side and whether he can break into Graham Potter’s first XI just as fellow Albion striker Aaron Connolly has done.
Brighton fans, do you think Enema Ella could feature for the first team before the season is out? Comment below with your views!
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