Real Betis could save Everton from themselves

Seville newspaper Estadio Deportivo has claimed that Everton need to raise cash in order to acquire midfielder William Carvalho, which if you ask me is pretty ludicrous seeing as he is not currently under contract at another club. Basically, the paper interpreted Everton needing to clear midfield roster deadweight as needing money to complete a free transfer. We can ignore that part of the report and assume that ED has no idea what’s going on at Finch Farm.

However, with their being local to Real Betis, I do put a little more weight in what they say about Betis’ interests. Real Betis is coming off a stellar year that saw them outperform their eternal rivals Sevilla in the league, and they seem very interested in continuing that control.

Apparently, they see the Portuguese midfielder as part of their pathway to doing that. Now, given the fact that their rivals boast one of the very best passing holding midfielders on earth on Steven N’Zonzi, I don’t see how adding one of the worst athletes I’ve ever seen qualifies as an idea. That being said, I’ve long since concluded that some folks just don’t see the same thing I do when looking at this player, as can be evidenced by this reply from Twitter. The poster, Simon Harrison, is a very gifted football writer who does a great job covering Spain and I respect him, but he sees this video as an example of the positive things that Carvalho brings to the match. Have a look for yourself:

What I see is a guy who, despite running as hard as he can, is behind this play from the very beginning. Once he finally gets down to the final third and has a chance to react to the play, he is too slow to stop it, whether because he is tired from the long run or because he simply cannot react quickly enough. Yet, another person sits there and looks at that and thinks it’s a positive.

You can decide for yourself. Frankly, if Betis were to win out and sign him, I think they’d be doing us a tremendous favor. I don’t think Carvalho is a good enough athlete to be a day to day player in the English Premier League, and I don’t want to test that idea on Everton’s dime.