NafisaDavid Moyes lavished praise on Beto after the forward netted his tenth goal of the season. The 27-year-old was emotional after his stoppage time leveller against the same team earlier this campaign.
It didn’t mark a turning point in his season as he continued to find it hard to earn game time under Sean Dyche.
The appointment of Moyes in January, coupled with a striker injury crisis, revitalised his Blues tenure, and it’s his goals that helped drag Everton clear of what looked like another punishing relegation battle.
He’s kept finding the net too—his instinctive strike at Craven Cottage followed his header against Ipswich Town the previous weekend.
Those strikes mean only Mo Salah, Alexander Isak and Jean-Philippe Mateta have bagged more goals in the Premier League since Moyes returned to Everton. This was Beto’s seventh in that spell, taking his total league tally to eight.
Speaking after his late-game heroics in west London, Moyes underlined the Guinea-Bissau international’s value at the end of a week when it was reported that newly promoted Leeds United were keen to bring him to Elland Road.
Beto represents a key asset for Everton, and Moyes, who was initially sceptical, now clearly understands the significance of his goals to the club’s campaign.
He is aiming to reshape the attacking unit, and no player’s spot is guaranteed.
However, offloading Beto is a step Everton would be highly unlikely to entertain—especially at this stage of the transfer window—given his crucial impact and the challenge of replacing his output. It’s even more improbable that Moyes would consider letting him go to a possible competitor next term.
Moyes said: “He’s a great boy, I’ve got to say. He practises like you can’t believe to try and get better, which when you’ve got that, you know then you’ve got something – he’s trying to get better.
“He’s incredibly humble. He is very honest with himself, which gives a manager a great chance to try to improve you.
“So I have to say he’s doing great. He’s got eight Premier League goals.
“I sort of said to him a couple of weeks ago, I said, ‘look, you might try and get 10’.
“If you think that he has not really played that much, he’s only really come on the scene in January, so if he could get another two between now and the end of the season, it would have been a great run of goals for him in the second half of the season.”
Nafisa
