Everton given high percentage chance of Beto transfer success after £25m bid tabled – Sky Sports’ Alan Myers
Everton have an 80% chance of getting a deal done for Beto after an improved offer was made for the Udinese striker, according to Alan Myers.
The Sky Sports journalist responded on Twitter Friday night (25 August) to a question on the move for the 25-year-old forward getting done, replying: “I’d say 80/20 right now”.
Fabrizio Romano reported on Friday that the two clubs were working on an add-ons structure after a €30million offer was made [£25.7m], with Sky Italy’s Gianluca Di Marzio reporting a deal is “very close”.
Everton need a new striker with Dominic Calvert-Lewin breaking a cheek bone in his latest return from injury at Aston Villa last week, with Neal Maupay still having scored just once for the club and Ellis Simms sold to Coventry this summer.
The Toffees have gone in for Rodrigo from Leeds United, El Bilal Touré from Almeria, and more recently Che Adams from Southampton, Patson Daka from Leicester, and PSG’s Hugo Ekitike, all without success, but have landed 19-year-old Sporting forward Youssef Chermiti.
Last chance saloon
Arguably, the Rodrigo pursuit aside, Beto might be the most suitable profile of striker the club have chased all summer in terms of readiness to contribute and potential to stand in for Calvert-Lewin.
Clearly Everton themselves thought that eight months ago, as Di Marzio reported a similar big-money big on deadline day that failed.
So the club could arguably have saved themselves a lot of time and effort if they had just gone back to Udinese at the start of the window with the offer they have now made.
But if it gets done at this stage it will be better late than never, and would appear to represent a better use of the money than the pursuit of Willy Gnonto, given the relative options out wide and up front.
Everton have lost twice in two games so far this season, not scoring in either, and with the collapse of the MSP Sports Capital investment deal it is all the more imperative that Sean Dyche somehow gets this side firing to stay away from the drop.
There are obviously deficiencies in the team but it is hard to escape the feeling that if they were able to just take the chances that come to them they would be capable of at least fashioning a lower mid-table finish.
No club will get anywhere if they can’t score goals though, and with little time left before the deadline it looks like this might be a last throw of the dice to land a senior striker.
Myers is pretty confident for now, but nobody can be completely sure unless the Portuguese is pictured signing an Everton contract.
In other Everton news, the club are trying to keep a player from leaving for Manchester United by giving him a better contract.