Elliott Cuff

Fri 26 March 2021 13:46, UK

Diniyar Bilyaletdinov represented a sizeable gamble when Everton brought him to Merseyside in 2009, and the general consensus following his exit two-and-a-half years later was that the gamble didn’t quite pay off.

The Russian winger showed flashes of brilliance in an Everton shirt, with sensational goals against Wolves, Portsmouth and Manchester United standing out as clear highlights.

However his thunderbolt strikes were often undercut by a lack of consistency, with the versatile attacker initially struggling to adapt to the speed and physicality of the Premier League.

After Joleon Lescott’s move to Manchester City was confirmed in August 2009, David Moyes moved quickly to bring in a handful of new recruits with the money raised from the defender’s sale.

Sylvain Distin, Johnny Heitinga and Bilyaletdinov moved to Goodison Park, the latter of which proved to be most risky, with Everton paying Lokomotiv Moscow £9million to land the man recommended to Moyes by Russia national team manager Guus Hiddink.

Bilyaletdinov almost immediately showed himself up as someone too lightweight to tackle the bustle of the Premier League, with the winger himself admitting that English football was “very fast”, further adding that “the mileage is probably the same but the speed is different.” [Guardian Sport]

Despite this though, Bily managed 23 Premier League appearances in his first season on Merseyside, playing primarily on the left.

Reflecting on Bilyaletdinov’s time as an Everton player, it is easy to point to where the Russian struggled to excel. He would often fade into anonymity if a game wasn’t going Everton’s way, and far too often the speed of the game left him treading water.

However that isn’t looking at the root of the issue, and there are two; namely that Bilyaletdinov was rarely played in his natural position, and that he was overshadowed by Steven Pienaar.

For Lokomotiv, Bily had sparkled through the centre, admittedly in a league in which the physical demands were much less great. However for Everton, he couldn’t unseat Tim Cahill in the central role, and he didn’t have enough tenacity to play a deeper in a 4-2-3-1 formation.

That meant he was often used on the left for the Blues, a position he contested with South African Pienaar, who for many remains the archetype of an ideal Everton wide man – someone who routinely displayed technical mastery but who also never allowed his work rate to falter.

Pienaar established a near-telepathic relationship with Leighton Baines, a left-back/left wing connection that hasn’t been replicated by any duo in the Premier League since, and Bilyaletdinov just didn’t have the same impact when playing in the South African’s place.

The stark contract between the two players was further underscored when Pienaar left to sign for Tottenham, with Bilyaletdinov failing to fill the void he left behind.

In the 2011/12 season with Pienaar out of the picture, Everton signed Royston Drenthe to play on the left, and when Pienaar returned on loan in January it spelled the end for Bilyaletdinov, who had only managed ten Premier League appearances in the first six months of the season.

Whether his failings were due primarily to his unfamiliarity with the left-wing or because he couldn’t adequately replace Pienaar, Bilyaletdinov became the victim of a team in transition, and after costing so much at a time when Everton were severely cash-strapped, he became an easy player to blame.

Diniyar Bilyaletdinov ultimately wasn’t missed when he left Goodison Park, but far from being a poor investment from the Toffees the Russian remains a player who was somewhat misunderstood. He was overshadowed by a superior star and his true talents were undervalued by many, and he should consider himself unfortunate to have seen his Premier League dream come crashing down the way it did.

In other Everton news, Dutch legend Ruud Gullit has blamed Everton for mishandling Davy Klaassen during his time at the club.