Ruben Amorim hints £25m Everton star was the Man United team talk at half-time, he was that good

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Everton came up just short of beating Manchester United on Saturday, and there are feelings of frustration today.

Everton were 2-0 up and cruising against United, and should really have seen the game out their opponents were that poor.

However, United came back in the second-half after some changes by Ruben Amorim.

At the end, there was huge controversy when referee Andy Madley overturned his penalty award to Everton via an intervention by the VAR.

Madley gave a penalty for a challenge on Ashley Young by Matthijs de Ligt, but then changed his mind after being sent to the pitchside monitor by the VAR. Alan Shearer branded the decision against Everton ‘mind-boggling’, mainly because VAR had shown some strange angles of the incident to Madley.

To draw 2-2 in the end was a tad frustrating for Everton.

But there were still lots of positives to take, including the continued form of Beto, who was again on the scoresheet.

And after the game, Amorim hinted that Beto was the subject of his team talk at half-time.

Ruben Amorim suggests Man United were struggling with Everton striker Beto

Beto is a man reborn at Everton.

The striker spent the first half of the season warming the bench, and just couldn’t get a proper look in under Sean Dyche.

But £25 million man Beto (Sky Sports) has now come into the team and repaid the faith shown in him by David Moyes, scoring five goals in his last four Premier League games.

He’s on fire, and he made life very uncomfortable for the United defence – and after the game, Amorim made a comment to suggest that the plan was to stop letting Beto be so effective.

He said: “In the second-half, we don’t let Beto control the ball going long.”

That implies he felt United were allowing that to happen too much in the first-half.

It was certainly a testing afternoon for his side at Goodison Park, but the occasion wasn’t lost on him, with Amorim praising the Everton fans after the game.

• READ MORE: TNT commentator explains what VAR told him after Everton vs Manchester United penalty incident

Beto’s stats for Everton against Manchester United

Amorim was certainly right to place emphasis on his side dealing with Beto better in the second-half.

Beto scored in the first-half, but he was just a total handful for the United centre-backs, with one statistic really indicating that.

As per Sofascore data, Beto contested a staggering 27 duels in the game.

That was easily the most of any player, with the next highest being the 16 contested by Idrissa Gana Gueye.

Beto also had three shots in total, and even made three clearances.

It is remarkable to see what confidence does for a player, and Everton now look like they have a genuine answer to a previously very big goalscoring problem.