Pedraza seems likely to stay at Betis for a lower fee

According to a report from AS, Alfonso Pedraza is likely to stay at Real Betis after all. After last season’s loan, Betis had a 10m option to buy that had future incentives that could gain us more money. They declined to exercise it. However, with only one year left on Pedraza’s deal and the player not wanting to return to Villarreal, they feel they have enough negotiating leverage to get the player at a smaller fee anyway.

I know some folks here at the site really rate Pedraza, but this may ultimately be a situation where we just take what we can get and move on. We’ve been loaning him out since 16/17, and unless Unai Emery sees him as the left back of the future and wants to give him a new contract immediately (which is very unlikely) there’s just not much else we can do. If he goes on to be a superstar, we should get a percentage of any future sales since he is a youth product of ours.

If we were going to develop Pedraza into a first team player, our chance to do it was before we bought Xavi Quintilla. I like Quintilla, but honestly he’s probably not a better player than Alfonso and they are very similar in age.

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The AS report suggested that English Premier League clubs and at least one Champions League side were also interested in Pedraza, but gave no indication as to who that may be. I don’t really think I buy that side of the story. What does make sense to me is that the player and club have mutually allowed his contract to wind down to its current point and that has resulted in a bad bargaining position for Villarreal.