Villarreal negotiating with Betis for Alfred N'Diaye

Villarreal are negotiating with Betis for the transfer of Alfred N'Diaye, a defensive midfielder and Senegalese international who has been a member of Real Betis since 2014.

The purchase will apparently involve some cash, but also the transfer of Tomas Pina to Betis.  Pina for N'Diaye is in many ways a swap of like-for-like, with both players being energetic tacklers but poor passers. N'Diaye is two years younger and a little more versatile: Betis used him in midfield but played him as a centerback in one match, where he did well.  His whoscored rating in La Liga was higher than Pina's (7.0 to 6.71) for what that's worth, and he was their man of the match four times to Pina's 0.

Pina joined Villarreal in the Gio dos Santos deal; Villarreal paid €10m for the two of them.   Gio was sold for around €6m, and Pina appears to be leaving, valued at €2-3m euros probably.  He's been a player that has always divided opinion on the site, and Villarreal fans generally.  He'll always be remembered here though for his remarkable cross that ended up in the Napoli goal to move us on in the Europa League.

The deal is not done yet--among other things, Pina has to agree to the betis move--but since it had been in the wind for some time that he wanted a move where he could play more regularly, that would not appear to be a huge obstacle.