David Moyes praises Beto’s work ethic and backs him to recapture goal-scoring form | OneFootball

David Moyes praised Beto’s work ethic in training during the pre-match press conference before the Blues make the trip to Etihad Stadium to face Manchester City on Saturday.

The Everton Number 9 has struggled to recapture his goal-scoring form from earlier this year, during the early months of Moyes’s return. He has scored just one goal in the Premier League so far this season and has had his fair share of struggles on the pitch.

During the international break, the Guinea-Bissau international was guilty of missing an open goal in his country’s 1-0 loss to Ethiopia in the World Cup qualifiers. Beto, who was the outright first choice upfront in the second half of the 2024-25 campaign, has also had to share game time with newcomer Thierno Barry.

Speaking about Beto in the pre-match press conference, Moyes said, “I think every Evertonian has seen as much as I’ve seen. Of course, we’re working every day with him.

“The boy is mad to do the work. He’s a brilliant, brilliant lad and his dedication to try and himself is second to none, so you can only praise him for that.

“We want him to get back what he was doing, running away from people scoring goals. When I came in last year, he probably had eight or nine one-v-ones.

“Maybe the way we’re playing, we’ve had more of the ball, we’re playing slightly different now, so maybe he hasn’t had as much room to run into behind.

“It still doesn’t take away that we want him to score goals. He’s got a couple and he should have scored the header that Jack gets, but it doesn’t matter, we got the goal.”

The Everton boss was also asked about the situation of Dwight McNeil, who has fallen down the pecking order this season. The 25-year-old, who joined Everton from Burnley for £20M in 2022, has made 227 Premier League appearances in his career. However, McNeil has played just 19 minutes of Premier League football this season and has remained on the fringes of the squad.

McNeil started for Everton’s U21 side against Bradford City in the EFL Vertu Trophy this week, a match they lost 5-1.

“He has to keep pushing to get into the side. As you can see, we’ve changed a few players in the attacking areas, we’re trying to improve there,” said Moyes.

“Dwight can give us something which we want. He has got the ability to create goals, make goals but he has got competition now.

“I think maybe this time last year, Dwight could have been Everton’s best player and he was injured when I first came in. So, he has to get back to that and show that and as I said, he’s got stiff opposition in front of him but he did ok for the Under-21s the other night.”

Reader Comments (3)

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You've got to laugh about this sort of article. It's clickbait and written in a way to clearly elicit lots of deprecating comments and discussion from fans.

TW has descended into this sort of trash journalism. I hope readers read this comment and refrain from posting further on this article. - Might tell Anjishnu Roy, whoever he is, to file more informative content on the site than this.

Craig,

I was really tempted to delete your post for the utter garbage that it is.

But first some facts to counter your nonsense.

Firstly and fundamentally, Anjishnu is faithfully reporting and providing context for comments made by the Everton manager about one of his key players. Why on earth would you call that 'clickbait'?

Yet you claim it is "written in a way to clearly elicit lots of deprecating comments and discussion from fans" -- clearly it's failed in that objective, even if it was remotely true.

I defy you to find one phrase -- never mind a sentence -- that even comes close to fitting your description. The article is completely factual and contains no editorial embellishment whatsoever.

We as the editorial team put up news items like this that are current, timely and relevant. In contrast to real clickbait, our headlines are descriptive and accurate.