Beto Bags Goal On Debut As Everton Finds Its Center Forward

Everton have moved to attempt to solve their goalscoring problems with the signing of Beto from Udinese for $33 million.

The Portuguese forward made his debut off the bench for his new club in the Carabao Cup Second Round tie with Doncaster Rovers on Wednesday evening, livening Everton’s front line and also grabbing a deserved goal.

The 25-year-old only arrived at Everton a day earlier and was not part of the club’s pre-match training for this particular game, but his attributes and potential to solve some of its problems persuaded manager Sean Dyche to introduce his new man at halftime.

“I can’t promise goals, but I will promise hard work and effort,” Beto told Sky Sports after the game. “I will always try to help the team score goals, with my teammates.”

Beto’s own words summed up his Everton debut, and what he will likely bring to the club going forward as he replaces the injured Dominic Calvert-Lewin up front.

He’s a player who will run the channels at speed. This was demonstrated when he did brilliantly to get to a ball on the right sideline before putting a cross in that might have resulted in a goal had the assistant referee on the touchline not incorrectly judged that the ball had gone out of play.

A lot of the best center-forwards in the history of the game are also very decent crossers. They know how and where they would want the ball delivered were they on the other end of it.

It was something Alan Shearer, one of the greatest-ever English center-forwards, was regularly able to do on top of his all-round goalscoring ability.

Whether Beto can score goals prolifically in English football remains to be seen, and an outing against League Two side Doncaster Rovers—from the fourth tier of English football—is not the type of game where he will prove this, but there were nevertheless promising signs.

When Everton wanted a goal, needed a goal, he provided one.

Beto looks like he will be an annoyance and a threat to opposition defences. He has the height to win balls in the air and the strength and ability to hold up play and hold off defenders in ground combat.

He is the type of forward that can make defences scramble to cover him and the threat he potentially poses, opening up space for others.

The priority for Everton, though, is goals, and it will be a big confidence boost for the club and its new player that he was able to get off the mark during the 45 minutes he played on Wednesday.

It will give Dyche the confidence to introduce Beto straight away in the upcoming Premier League game away to Sheffield United, less than 20 miles away from Doncaster where he made his debut.

A header was rattled off the frame of the goal, a shot was mishit badly with his left foot, then a goal was scored with great skill and composure to equalise for Everton before Arnaut Danjuma scored the winner later in the second half.

A couple of bad moments punctuated plenty of good moments, but at last Everton had a player at least doing something in attack. There was now a central goal threat to speak of. Someone who could cause panic in an opposition defence.

Beto is one of an increasing number of more traditional center-forwards being used by teams at the top level.

Erling Haaland of Manchester City is the obvious example, but many other clubs will now have number nine of some sort, whether a troublesome target man, a nippy goal-getter, or ideally a player who offers a bit of everything, with intelligent running, speed, size, and technical ability.

Reaching Haaland’s level is impossible, but players can still be of this type even if they don’t match the Norwegian’s output.

In Beto, Everton has a 6-foot-4 striker who offers hard work, good running in the channels, a physical threat, and judging by his finish against Doncaster, someone who can find the back of the net when presented with chances.

Beto is wise not to make promises on goalscoring numbers, but he’ll need to bag a few and help others do the same. Everton’s 2023/24 Premier League survival could depend on it.