Albion Analytics: What sort of player is Enciso?

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The numbers behind the Paraguay international's game.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2022-06-21T05:00:00Z

Julio Enciso was a threat all evening for Albion, going onto score our second of the night.

Brighton confirmed Julio Enciso as their first signing of the summer last week, with the Paraguayan becoming the youngest first team recruit since Graham Potter’s arrival in 2019.

Though 18, Enciso has a combined 68 club appearances across the Primera Division (Paraguayan top league) and Libertadores (South American Champions League), directly involved in 29 goals (21 goals, 8 assists) in little over 4,000 minutes – the teenager averages a goal involvement every 144 minutes.

Internationally, he has already appeared five times for Paraguay, and is their second youngest debutant (at 17 years, 4 months and 23 days vs Bolivia) since the turn of the Millennium.

This season, Enciso has netted 11 goals in just 14 appearances, scoring on average once every 106 minutes, the most efficient goal-scorer in the league and responsible for 28% of Libertad’s goals.

Should he score a Premier League goal, he would become the seventh Paraguayan to net in this competition. Arguably Enciso’s biggest strength is his finishing skill, due to a combination of his composure in-front of goal and ability to score a variety of goals with both feet. He is a good goal-scorer as well as a scorer of good goals; five of his 21 senior goals have been left-footed, while 31% of his shots are with his non-dominant right foot. Across last season, Enciso’s shot on target rate (39.4%) would rank him inside the top five most accurate Albion shooters, while only Adam Webster and Danny Welbeck could better Enciso’s 15% conversion rate.

The Paraguay international has scored goals from outside the box, from tight angles, first time finishes from crosses, from runs in-behind a high defensive line and even from penalties – he has scored all three of his senior penalties, including a 97th minute match-winner at rivals Olympia last season, one of eight match-winning goals in his career to date.

Statistically, Enciso is among the top 5% of Paraguayan players for shots per game, xG assisted and successful dribbles. Of course, that output will not be directly transferrable to the Premier League, but it is indicative of his quality relevant to current opponents.

Given his ability to create attacks as well as convert chances, he has operated as a winger, no.9 and primarily a no.10 in his time at Libertad, with such versatility suiting a Brighton side that utilised 13 different shapes last campaign.

Wyscout data has Leandro Trossard as the most statistically similar player to Enciso, though he does not rank among the most 20 alike, nodding to Graham Potter’s point that the 18-year-old will offer the Albion something different in attack.