Pervis Estupinan leaving Brighton to join AC Milan means the Albion are losing perhaps their most entertaining player. A man who provided the perfect mix of being very good and very entertaining through his 104 game Seagulls career.
Summed up perfectly by what proved to be his final touch in a Brighton shirt. You know the one I am talking about.
30 seconds remaining. The Albion holding onto a one-goal advantage against champions Liverpool in a game they had to win to keep any slim hopes of European qualification alive.
Keeping the ball and running down the clock would have been the course of action taken by a sane man. But Estupinan was no sane man.
Instead, he decided to shoot from 35 yards. it was such a wild effort that it flew out for a throw, gifting Liverpool possession and the chance to launch one final attack of their own in search of an equaliser.
Last ever touch for us in a competitive game 🕊️ pic.twitter.com/P3rtxsab2N
— 2herk1 (@2hrek1) July 21, 2025
Your correspondent roared with laughter. Fabian Hurzeler seemingly failed to see the funny side, storming around the technical area whilst shouting “F**K OFF, F**K OFF.” Just to add to the comedy.
I could spend all day waxing lyrical about more magnificent Estupinan moments. How about the time he overhit a corner from one side of the pitch which luckily skimmed off the head of an opposition player?
Estupinan sprinted across to the other side to take the subsequent throw in. Which he threw straight into the face of another opposition player from a matter of yards.
He also played a seriously underrated role in the infamous four-on-one-break cock up against Wolves, when the Albion had a glorious chance to make it 3-1 in the 95th minute against the side bottom of the Premier League at the time. 30 seconds later and it was Brighton 2-2 Wolves.
Whilst Mats Wieffer messed up the pass, he and the two players charging forward alongside him did at least have attacking briefs.
Estupinan was meant to be the left back. Yet there he was. Galloping down the pitch like a man without a care in the world.
It was into the space Estupinan vacated that Wolves countered and scored whilst he was caught hopelessly out-of-position.
Now we are almost 400 words in and any AC Milan fans reading this might be mistaken for thinking this Pervis Estupinan chap they have signed from Brighton is nothing more than a clown.
But this is the beauty of Estupinan. He is also a very good player. For every moment involving sending his manager into total meltdown through a piece of phenomenal decision making, you get a rocket of a goal like Estupinan netted against Spurs. Or Stoke.
During his first 14 months at the Albion, you could even make an argument he was the best left back in the Premier League.
Roberto De Zerbi ditching the back three of Graham Potter in favour of 4-2-3-1 brought out the best in both Kaoru Mitoma and Estupinan.
Their partnership down the left was one of the major reasons why Brighton finished sixth at the end of the 2022-23 season.
Estupinan took that form into 2023-24. If you fancy judging a player based on their FPL popularity and fantasy points returns, there were few better than Estupinan between August and the end of September 2023.
He delivered one goal, three assists and 27 points throughout the first five matches of the campaign. He was included in over 6.2 million FPL squads.
But then came the injuries. Estupinan was ruled out three times through 2023-24. His first comeback from injury saw him summoned from the bench away against Ajax, only to limp off again just 20 minutes later.
Immediately after comeback two were those two stunning strikes against Spurs and Stoke. His third injury in March required ankle surgery.
De Zerbi said at the time Estupinan would face six months out. He returned ahead of schedule but never looked the same player last season under Hurzeler.
Which explains why Brighton have sold Pervis Estupinan to AC Milan for basically the same price they paid to Villarreal for his services three years ago.
Had you told any Brighton fan back in 2023 – after Estupinan had improved the left back position following the £62 million sale of Marc Cucurella to Chelsea – that the Albion would not turn a profit on the Ecuadorian, those supporters would have called for you to be sectioned.
If it is indeed the injury which is still impacting Estupinan rather than him just going through an extended patch of poor form, a move to the less physical and intense Serie A can be a good thing for him.
And who knows? AC Milan manager Massimiliano Allegri might even be more understanding than Hurzeler if Estupinan ambitiously shoots from long range in the 95th minute.
What a player. What an entertainer.