David Moyes admits Diniyar Bilyaletdinov is still struggling to fulfil his potential, and continues to find the pace of the English game problematic. He hoped Bily would use his goal-scoring exploits from Everton's successful run-in towards the end of their last campaign, and a promising pre-season, to establish himself this time around. Instead, the £9M capture from Lokomotiv Moscow, has found first team starts difficult to come by so far, and had much to prove at White Hart Lane.
Moyes said: “Bily is struggling a bit with his confidence. I thought pre-season would be a chance for him to come through. But it probably took Steven Pienaar a year to fit into the team, and Bily may well get his opportunity in the coming weeks so it is up to him to take it.
“He is probably still coming to terms with the general speed of English football. But he had a real influence in the goals we scored last season. Maybe he wasn’t quite at the top of his game, but he was important at different times, he has contributed by getting us important goals at different times at games.
“We were all hoping we’d see something extra this season and at the moment we haven’t seen that. The boy knows he needs to improve his all-round play.
“The language barrier isn’t a problem though, his English is really good, and he is a really talented footballer, but he maybe needs to add an overall quickness to his game. But there are players