It’s been a busy few weeks at Ipswich Town, whose latest signing is Florentino Luis.
The defensive midfielder follows Emersonn (£5.5m), Abdul Fatawu (£5.5m), Issa Diop (£4.0m), Daizen Maeda (£5.5m) and goalkeeping pair Kjell Scherpen (£4.5m) and Kayne van Oevelen (£4.5m) through the door.
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He arrives for an initial £16 million (plus £3 million add-ons), with Burnley making a slight loss on June’s obligatory purchase.
“I think I will be very happy here. I like how the club sees the future and there are a lot of good players here. How the club is thinking to the long-term is one of the main reasons I came here. I can bring experience and balance to the team, between defence and attack, and I like to bring the connection.” – Florentino Luis, to the Ipswich Town website
Another talent to emerge from Benfica’s academy, he eventually established himself in their first team after loan spells at Monaco and Getafe.
Florentino joined the Clarets last September, but couldn’t help them escape relegation.
DEFCON PROWESS
Although low on attacking returns, the Portuguese’s strength lies elsewhere. He’s tenacious and hard-working, a strong tackler.
Being a defensive shield usually leads to high numbers for clearances, blocks, interceptions, recoveries and tackles (CBIRT). But Florentino is especially good at them.
14 of last season’s 25 starts ended with defensive contribution (DefCon) rewards. The only midfielders to beat these 28 extra points started at least 30 times:
In fact, of everyone who played 1,000+ minutes, just Elliot Anderson (£6.5m) beat Florentino’s 13.23 DefCon per 90:
Using WhoScored and SofaScore, his two final seasons at Benfica had rates of around 13.38 and 14.34.
| MINS | GAMES | C | B | I | R | T | CBIRT PER 90 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | Burnley | 2,136 | 31 | 56 | 14 | 41 | 113 | 90 | 13.23 |
| 2024/25 | Benfica | 1,977 | 26 | 31 | 5 | 51 | 125 | 82 | 13.38 |
| 2023/24 | Benfica | 1,682 | 30 | 12 | 5 | 49 | 123 | 79 | 14.34 |
FPL POTENTIAL?
Consistently gaining two DefCon points sounds quite appealing, doesn’t it?
Ipswich’s early fixtures are decent. While there are some tests to avoid during the opening 10 Gameweeks, there are seven alright matches in that period. The colour-coded difficulty ratings below come from our Fixture Ticker:
Plus, Florentino should start initially because the Tractor Boys have a central midfield shortage. Loanees Dan Neil and Jens Cajuste are gone, while Azor Matusiwa (£5.0m) and Jack Taylor (£4.5m) are still recovering from end-of-season surgeries.
Longer term, however, is Florentino in a fight with Matusiwa – himself a DefCon machine in the Championship – for one spot? Gary O’Neil might prefer more creativity in the other central midfield slot.
Bear in mind, too, that Florentino didn’t totally convince in the Premier League last season. While starting off as a regular, his grip on a central midfield spot loosened and he was in and out of the side this calendar year. This was a Burnley team short on quality and heading for the drop, too.
The Ipswich new boy offers next-to-no attacking threat, meanwhile. Just two shots in the box in the whole of 2025/26, and no big chances created. A miserable season-long xGI of 1.21.
We assume he’s going to be £5.0m, so he’s one for the budget midfield watchlist. However, until we establish that he’s going to be a regular, the likes of Matt Grimes (£5.0m) and Christian Norgaard (£5.0m), who also offer supplementary attacking threat, probably edge him in the £5.0m bracket for now.
