One of the biggest success stories for Everton under David Moyes has been the form of Beto. Is the Scotsman providing the perfect environment to turn the striker into a regular goalscorer for the club?
Beto’s been saving ammunition for some time now. The 27-year-old likes to keep ‘notes’ of criticism across various forms of social media to motivate him.
“I have notes. I have screenshots from Facebook, YouTube – when they say something like I’m not good enough or something like that. I say ‘OK’, I take a screenshot, I put it on my notes, and I read it,” he revealed in an interview with the BBC last summer.
Considering his lack of goals to justify the £25.8 million fee Everton paid for him and significant pressure from fans on him to provide the goods in the battle with relegation amid points deductions, there was likely to be a long selection of notes to pick from.
But the striker, now in his second season at Everton following a move from Serie A side Udinese in August 2023, is finally enjoying himself under new manager David Moyes after a difficult time under former boss Sean Dyche.
His goal at Selhurst Park against Crystal Palace on Saturday was his fourth in as many games for the Toffees, while it was the first time he’d scored in consecutive appearances for the club. In fact, he’s already equalled his tally of Premier League goals under former manager Dyche inside Moyes’ opening five games at the club (4).
With Moyes back at the club, Everton have started to become a team that opponents aren’t looking forward to facing. Since his first game in charge against Aston Villa on 15 January, the Merseyside club have won 13 points – no other team have won more.
Beto has played a big part in that upturn in fortune, although his situation has been helped by yet another injury to Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
The Guinea-Bissau international played just seven minutes as a substitute for Calvert-Lewin in Moyes’ first game against Villa, while he remained an unused sub in the 3-2 home win over Spurs four days later. However, a thigh injury suffered by Calvert-Lewin early on in Everton’s 1-0 away win at Brighton offered Beto a chance at redemption. So far, he’s grabbing that chance with both hands.
Two goals in the 4-0 rout of Leicester City were followed by further first-half strikes in the Merseyside derby against Liverpool and the weekend win at Palace. Beto has now already played more Premier League minutes under Moyes (352) than he did under Dyche (221) this season, with his former boss clearly not a believer in his talents.
Beto has always had to prove people wrong in his career. As a teenager he was given a chance at Benfica’s academy but was released after only a year. Growing older, he balanced part-time work at fast-food restaurant KFC alongside his football commitments at Lisbon-based club Uniao Tires in the regional leagues, playing for their first team at just 16 years old.
He eventually moved on to third-tier side Olimpico Montinjo from the nearby Setúbal district of Portugal in 2018, but his goalscoring record in his only season at the club was enough to alert Primeira Liga side Portimonense, who saw off competition from Lille (where he had spent time on trial) and Sporting CP (who wanted to put him in their under-23 side) to his signature. The lure of first-team top-flight action was too much for him to turn down.
Beto had to bide his time on the Algarve. In his first season in 2019-20, he was restricted to just 11 substitute appearances in league competition, mainly playing for their U23 side and accumulating only 162 top-flight minutes in a campaign disrupted by the COVID pandemic.
Beto and Portimonense were to get a stroke of luck that summer, however. As they’d finished second from bottom in the 2019-20 league campaign, the Portimão side were set to be relegated. However, off-pitch issues saw Vitória de Setúbal relegated instead, meaning Portimonense were handed a reprieve and Beto could look forward to another chance as a top-flight footballer. It was an opportunity that he made the most of.
Eleven league goals from Beto in 2020-21 helped Portimonense avoid relegation, and his personal tally ended up as nearly a third of his club’s total (34). Only two other players from clubs outside of the big three in Portugal scored more in the Primeira Liga that season, and this naturally led to interest from elsewhere.
A move to Sporting CP was mooted, but a move to Serie A club Udinese (originally on loan and then permanently) came about on the final day of the August 2021 transfer window after Beto had begun the season as he finished the last, scoring two goals in three league appearances for Portimonense.
Across the 2021-22 and 2022-23 Serie A seasons, Beto scored 21 times for Udinese and was their top scorer in each campaign. It became apparent in Italy how good he was at finding dangerous positions from which to score. Of the 44 players to reach double figures for non-penalty goals in 2021-22 and 2022-23 combined, Beto had the fifth best xG per 90 (0.48).
In August 2023, Everton were in desperate need of a goalscorer. The previous season had equalled their worst-ever Premier League campaign for goals (34 in 38 games) and they’d kicked off 2023-24 with three successive failures to score – against Fulham, Aston Villa and Wolves.
Everton weren’t a club that could go out and break the bank to get a superstar striker, nor could they attract a striker of that ilk with another battle against relegation expected. With all due respect, Beto for £25.8m was arguably the best that they could hope for.
His time at Everton began well enough, as he scored the opening goal in a 2-1 EFL Cup win over Doncaster Rovers on his debut, just days after signing. But scoring against League Two opposition proved easier than doing it versus Premier League clubs, and Beto failed to score in his next 11 games for the club.
In his defence, his role at the club quite quickly shifted from possible saviour to benchwarmer under Dyche. He started Everton’s next three games after his goalscoring debut but would only start 10 of Everton’s following 60 competitive matches under Dyche.
He quickly became Dyche’s go-to option off the bench, with Beto’s 38 substitute appearances for the club between joining and Dyche’s departure on 9 January 2024 more than double any other player at the club in all competitions (Youssef Chermiti – 18). Across those 38 substitute appearances, he averaged 22 minutes including added time – hardly sufficient time to make much of an impact.
Dyche’s Everton became more reliant on set-piece situations for scoring attempts, with 35.2% of their total xG in 2023-24 and the opening 19 games of 2024-25 coming from set-pieces.
Moyes’ arrival has changed everything for him, and Beto has been quick to praise the tactics of his new boss. Speaking to the Liverpool Echo following the win over Palace on Saturday, he said Moyes “likes to make me do my game. Running behind is a massive part of my game and the team is playing better now too.
Under Moyes, all four of Beto’s Premier League goals have come from central positions and three of those have come from deep through balls, where the striker has peeled away from the last man and finished well. Although 6-foot-4, Beto isn’t a striker who thrives off constant aerial duels and set-pieces, he’s a smart forward who plays off the last man well. Moyes looks to have recognised this quite quickly.
It would be wrong to pretend that Moyes hasn’t encouraged long passing in the direction of Beto since taking over. The proportion of long passes received by Beto under the Scotsman in the Premier League stands at 31.0%, which is only just below the average under Dyche (31.4%). However, the average distance of progressive passing fired into Beto in open play has dropped from 9.0 metres to 7.5 metres – the length of pass is being mixed up a bit more.
Beto added this weekend: “We always have pressure to score because we need goals to win. We’re having more chances under the gaffer and it’s helping us. We’re scoring the chances and it’s helping because sometimes we had a lot of chances and didn’t score. Not just me but all the team.”
He might be mistaken about the number of chances Everton are having under Moyes compared to Dyche – it’s actually dropped from 12.6 non-penalty shots per game under Dyche since 2023-24 to 9.7 per game under Moyes – but the quality of chances that the Toffees are getting in games has increased by quite a bit.
In 57 Premier League games under Dyche since the start of last season, the average xG of Everton’s non-pen shots was 0.10 – that’s increased to 0.13 under Moyes. Admittedly this is a small sample size to compare (6 games vs 57 games), but the signs are promising. The increased quality of non-pen shots has helped their shot conversion rate jump to 19.0% under Moyes from such chances, when it was 7.4% under Dyche.
Following Saturday’s win over Palace, Everton sit 13 points clear of the relegation zone with 13 games remaining. With the current bottom three struggling for points, it looks incredibly unlikely that Beto will be part of a relegation battle with the club this season. That should allow him some room for growth and with a positive understanding being formed between him and new attacking arrival Carlos Alcaraz, it could be a fun time ahead for Everton fans.
For Beto, the aim now will be to reach double figures for goals in a season for a top-flight club for the fourth season in his career. He’s four away from equalling his best ever return, and few will bet against him doing so after such a promising start to life under Moyes.
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