**Two in Betis’ midfield, and the numbers point the wrong way**

**0.9 goals scored a game** is the return when Francisco Javier Sanchís and Álvaro Coll share Real Betis’ central midfield. The concession rate is 1.9. In eight matches without one of the pair, Betis have scored 1.9 a game and conceded 0.9. The partnership is struggling; the arithmetic has not attempted to soften the finding.

Together, Sanchís and Coll have been on the field for 20 games: five wins, two draws and 13 defeats. Without one of them, Betis have won seven of eight and lost the other. There have been no draws in either sample.

The comparison is blunt, though it does not identify a culprit. The figures cover games with both players and games without one; they do not separate Sanchís from Coll, or explain what else changed around them. Any verdict on which man matters more would be an answer to a different question. For now, the partnership itself carries the poorer returns.

That makes the contrast awkward for two players with long ties to the club. Sanchís came through Betis’ youth intake and has spent much of his career there; Coll also emerged from the club’s youth system. One is established, the other still building his place, but the shared sample gives neither the comfort of a good run.

There is no shortage of individual resolve in the available evidence: both men are described as model professionals, and both are fiercely ambitious. Sanchís, who has made 405 club appearances across his career, has been a constant presence in Betis colours. Coll’s Betis total is smaller, but his connection is not new. Neither biography changes the average. A club can value continuity; goals conceded are less sentimental.

The partnership was already under scrutiny in February, when By the Numbers noted two men in the middle and two ways to lose. The season’s figures since then leave little room for a more generous reading. The sample sizes differ, so this is no controlled experiment. It is still a pattern large enough to resist being filed under coincidence.

Betis’ question is not whether the pair can be made to look good on paper. It is whether the team can keep producing the stronger numbers when one of them is absent. At present, the combination has won five of 20; the alternative has won seven of eight. The distance between those records is the story, and **the better figure is 7 from 8**.