EVEN if no-one has heard of Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, it makes a pleasant change to talk about players coming to Everton, as opposed to what feels like a decade of wondering if and when Joleon Lescott was leaving for Manchester City.

Internet clips of the Russian winger hammering home goals against ex-army teams in massive empty stadiums in the Urals, set to a soundtrack of risqué Romanian house music, don’t really give you a lot to go on, so we just have to hope that David Moyes’s research into Bilyaletdinov involved more than Google and a hurried conversation with Guus Hiddink in the Wembley tunnel.

That said, we were trying to convince ourselves that a move for the injured Gary O’Neil represented a shrewd bit of business the other week, so the prospect of a £9million Russian international is certainly quite exciting.

We’re still linked with almost every central defender in the league as well, with a move for Sylvain Distin apparently looking promising.

Given some of the flakes that have been mooted lately as potential Lescott replacements, the experienced Frenchman seems a pretty safe bet. As well as players with ability, we also need some more with strong characters at the moment.

There was a tendency to look for excuses after the Arsenal game – the Lescott saga, principally, and the fact that the Gunners are lethal on their day – but no-one can justify the distinct lack of leadership at Turf Moor.

It’s a good job we established such a convincing lead over Sigma Olomouc in the first leg then; anything less than a 4-0 lead would have had us all sweating over the prospect of an early goal for the Czechs and a Bucharest-style cave-in.