Inside the Real Betis squad: depth by position

A squad built wide but thin in places

Real Betis finished fifth in La Liga with 60 points from 38 games, and the squad that got them there is genuinely interesting to pull apart, not because it is perfect, but because of how obviously lopsided it is in certain areas. Start in goal and you already have something unusual: two senior keepers in Adrián and Pau López, both with real top-flight pedigree, both capable of starting for a side at this level. That is not a weakness. But it does raise the obvious question about whether one of them goes in the summer.

The back line is where the thinness shows. Ricardo Rodriguez, Valentín Gómez, Ángel Ortiz. three defenders listed, and three is not a lot for a club playing European football. Rodriguez has been around long enough to know what a Liga campaign demands. Gómez and Ortiz bring younger legs, and the Real Betis club hub has covered their development in some depth if you want the background. But as a defensive unit covering 38 league games plus whatever continental commitments come next season, three named senior options feels like a squad built with one eye on a smaller budget than the ambition demands. You can paper over that if everyone stays fit. You usually cannot.

Midfield is where the side has real personality. Lo Celso is the obvious name, when he has been available, Betis have looked like a different team, technically precise, willing to play forward. Amrabat provides the grunt and the coverage, which Lo Celso emphatically does not, and Fidalgo adds something a bit less easy to categorise, an industrious presence who can carry the ball. Three midfielders again, but these three cover genuinely different ground. The balance across that unit is better than anywhere else in the squad.

Thin at the back, well-equipped in the middle, and then an attack full of movement and individual quality. That is the shape of this Betis side. Whether the squad depth survives a full season of competing on multiple fronts is a different matter entirely.

Eleven goals of difference and what it hides

59 scored, 48 conceded, a goal difference of plus-eleven. For fifth place, that is respectable. Liverpool won the league last season with a goal difference that dwarfs it, obviously, but Betis were not competing for the title. Fifth in Spain with plus-eleven means they did enough going forward and kept things reasonably solid at the back. Fine. Except I find myself bothered by how close the concession number is to the goals-for figure. Eleven goals of separation across a 38-game season is not a lot of cushion.

A side that scored 59 and conceded 48 is not a team that dominates games. It is a team that trades. And trading works until you hit a bad run, a defensive injury, a goalkeeper out of form, and then the margin evaporates fast. You can run the our predictions numbers on that kind of side and find they are nearly always closer to the danger zone than the standings suggest. Betis finished comfortably enough, but that goal difference whispers something about fragility.

The 15 draws also sit there, quietly. Fifteen. That is nearly two in every five games ending level. A side that converts more of those into wins. by either scoring one more goal or conceding one fewer, finishes in a completely different conversation. Maybe third. Betis drew their way to fifth, which sounds harsh, but the numbers back it up.

The attack and the question of who leads it

Bakambu, Cucho Hernández, Ezzalzouli. Three attackers, three very different profiles, and no single dominant goalscorer in the data. That last point matters more than anything else about this forward line. A side that scores 59 league goals without a clear top scorer is doing something right in terms of collective contribution. goals coming from multiple sources is generally a good thing, but it also means there is no one you point to and say: when we need a goal, he gets us one.

Cucho Hernández is the name that catches the eye. He has that unpredictable quality, the kind of forward who can do something nobody planned for. Ezzalzouli on the other side gives Betis width and pace, and the William Hill review crowd will have had him in their accumulators often enough this season given how regularly he gets involved. Bakambu brings the experience, the hold-up play, the ability to bring others into the game.

Three forward options covering different functions. But 59 goals across 38 games. just over 1.5 per game, is not the output of an elite attacking side. It is productive. Solid enough. The issue is that fifth place in La Liga now means Europa League football at minimum, probably pushing for more, and 59 goals against La Liga defences becomes a different proposition when you are also navigating Thursday nights in Seville and the squad is already tight across the back line.

What Betis need from this forward group next season is not necessarily more variety. They have variety. They need someone to take ownership of the goalscoring, to reach double figures in the league and make the side harder to plan against. Right now, opponents know Betis will create. they just do not know who to fear most. That sounds like a strength. Over a long season, it becomes a problem when three big games come in a row and nobody is in form.

Cucho Hernández stepping into that primary role, consistently, would change what this team looks like by February.