Liam Rosenior on the phone. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Report: Liam Rosenior wants former Brighton player as his first signing at Chelsea

By Simon Phillips - 8th Jan 2026, 12:30pm

A report claims that new Blues boss Liam Rosenior wants a former Brighton player as his first signing at Chelsea.

It’s almost like you couldn’t make this stuff up, right? Chelsea and Brighton, the connection is mad. From a bunch of former players to former staff, Chelsea seem to continuously want to bring in former Brighton staff or players!

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Although with this former Brighton player, I don’t think many Chelsea fans would have any issue seeing him come in, all jokes aside.

We are talking about Valentin Barco of Strasbourg, who of course was playing under Rosenior at the French club before he joined Chelsea.

Barco for me is a superb player and I’d love to see him at Chelsea, but I’m not sure whether it’s that realistic right now.

What the report says

Rosenior wants to raid his former club.

That’s according to DSport, and they state Rosenior is already thinking about signing Strasbourg’s Valentín Barco for Chelsea.

According to them, there’s a ‘good chance’ of Chelsea signing him because of the Todd Boehly connection.

Not sure what that means really

BlueCo own Chelsea and Strasbourg, so maybe that’s what they mean about the ‘Boehly connection’. As we have seen, it does make it much easier for BlueCo to move players, and now managers, between the two clubs that they own. So that is perhaps what they mean here.

I certainly wouldn’t be going out to put a bet against Barco playing for Chelsea one day very soon, but perhaps if it does happen, it will be one for the summer window rather than the current winter window we are in right now.