Tyler Dibling is no longer a 'teenage sensation' as he turns 20 today but after a tough start there remains hope for Everton's most expensive signing of last summer
On March 26 last year, Give Me Sport reported that Southampton wanted over £100million for “teenage sensation” Tyler Dibling. What we all want in life and what we get are often two very different things though.
Jack Grealish, who lit up Everton’s first season at Hill Dickinson Stadium on loan from Manchester City before a stress fracture in his left foot curtailed his campaign in January, was the first £100million English footballer, and since then only Declan Rice – schooled by Blues boss David Moyes at West Ham United before joining Arsenal after the Irons’ UEFA Europa Conference League win under the Scot – has joined him.
For all his promise, it seems that Dibling was never a £100million player, not at this early stage in his career. One thing that he certainly isn’t anymore is a teenage sensation because today the Exeter-born prospect celebrates his 20th birthday.
Following their relegation from the Premier League, it was always highly unrealistic the Saints were ever going to get the previously touted nine-figure fee for Dibling, but even going into last August, St Mary’s chiefs were holding out for a £50million price tag that would have made him Everton’s record signing ahead of Gylfi Sigurdsson who cost £45million from Swansea City in 2017. The Blues baulked at that fee though and refused to be held to ransom, but when they did return to the negotiating table to strike a deal – and the ECHO understands it was Southampton who reopened the talks – the £35million down payment still made Dibling Everton’s most expensive signing of a summer which saw their largest ever net spend.
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One of Moyes’ big gripes that he vented during the Blues’ time in the USA for the Premier League Summer Series was not only a concern over the number of new faces he needed, but getting sufficient time to bed them in. Although he got to witness the first competitive game at Hill Dickinson Stadium from the stands when Everton defeated Brighton & Hove Albion on August 24, Dibling did not complete his transfer until after that match, which was the Blues’ second Premier League fixture of the season, some six weeks after the first friendly at Accrington Stanley.
On completing his move, he said: “I’ve never been so excited to play football and I’m just ready to get going. I think it’s the perfect match because of where the club is right now.
“Obviously with the new stadium, the fans here are unreal, and it has a family feel to it. I think it was the perfect fit and was a no-brainer to join.
“I think I’ve come to Everton at the perfect time and hopefully I can be here for many years.”
However, a disjointed summer with his future having been up in the air had left Dibling playing catch up and although he was thrown straight into the action with a half-hour cameo off the bench just 48 hours after signing, in the 2-0 Carabao Cup win at home to Mansfield Town, Premier League outings were harder to come by. With loan pair Jack Harrison and Jesper Lindstrom both having gone back to their parent clubs after underwhelming the previous season, it looked for most of the summer that the Blues were going to have to recruit two new right wingers, yet they only got Dibling through the door towards the end of the window.
Charly Alcaraz occupied the role for the season’s opener at Leeds United – a night when James Garner also played at left-back – but after making his debut coming off the bench at Elland Road, Grealish would soon make the left wing spot his own which shunted Iliman Ndiaye over to the right. Although Ndiaye had spent much of his maiden campaign on Merseyside on the left, finishing top scorer with 11 goals, his transition to the opposite flank – a role he often occupies for Senegal – proved seamless.
Having netted the final two goals in Everton’s final fixture at Goodison Park, against a Southampton side featuring Dibling, Ndiaye made history again with a landmark piece of symmetry by netting the opening strike in competitive football at Hill Dickinson Stadium in the aforementioned clash with the Seagulls. Such was his form in the months ahead, that Dibling’s minutes were few and far between.
When he was given chances, he failed to take them. His first start came on September 23 in the 2-0 Carabao Cup exit to a Wolverhampton Wanderers side who were pointless in the Premier League at the time and the youngster was substituted after less than an hour.
Making his first Premier League start against Crystal Palace on October 5, he got the hook at half-time, a fate that also befell him again against Brentford on January 4, the only other time he’s been in Moyes’ starting line-up for a Premier League fixture at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Dibling lasted 75 minutes against Sunderland at home in the FA Cup third round, but at the time Everton were down to the bare bones when it came to selection options, and his output wasn’t much better.
In contrast though, his two back-to-back starts at the end of the calendar year at Burnley and Nottingham Forest were far more encouraging. There is clearly a hugely talented player in there waiting to come out, but Evertonians have only witnessed tantalising glimpses so far.
Having brought in another wide attacker on transfer deadline day of the winter window as Chelsea’s Tyrique George joined the Blues on loan from Chelsea with an option for a permanent move in the summer, Moyes was asked how he’d feel about the acquisition if he were Dibling. The manager’s response was unequivocal as he remarked: “I’d be thinking I better get my finger out and show the manager what I was really all about.
“The one thing is Tyler has got on his side is that he is young and he is a quite a quiet boy who might take more time to settle in. Might. But he needs to show when he gets the opportunities.
“I think there are just little glimpses of him just beginning to get angry, which I am enjoying, just beginning to be someone who might have to get angry in order to show what he wants to do.”
George, who was born just a fortnight before Dibling, had played fewer senior matches before making his move to Merseyside (37 to the former Southampton boy wonder’s 44), but he’d experienced European football with the west London outfit and – alongside Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall – had helped them to win the FIFA Club World Cup in the USA last summer. Duly, he got the nod ahead of Dibling as an impact substitute at Craven Cottage, helping Everton to turn the game around in their 2-1 comeback win over Fulham and then was handed a first start against Bournemouth.
The pair, who know each other from their time together with England Under-21s under the tutelage of former Goodison Park fans’ favourite Lee Carsley though, are good pals and after Dibling was photographed smiling as they trained together, there is hope that the penny might be dropping for him. Whispers coming out of Finch Farm since George arrived have suggested, as Moyes himself has hinted, that Dibling is starting to step things up.
Speaking to Gary Lineker in his The Rest Is Football podcast last April, former Southampton manager Russell Martin proclaimed that Dibling was the best player he’s ever worked with (pointing out he’d coached Harry Kane and James Maddison) and “he has something I’ve not seen in a British player in a long time,” and insisting he would be “worth every penny” for any potential suitors that came calling last summer.
In turn, once the deal was done, Alfie House, senior Southampton FC reporter for the Southern Daily Echo, told the ECHO that Dibling was a “younger but bigger Jack Grealish.” He added: “Technically he’s second to very few,” and “in the right conditions, with a bit of belief in him, he can be a game-changer.”
It seems that Dibling needs some of that belief from himself. Not all of Moyes’ big buys have been instant hits over the years and we keep being told that the Devon lad is a quiet boy.
In that respect, he need look no further than first team coach Leighton Baines, who was Everton’s most expensive defender at the time when he joined from Wigan Athletic for £6million in 2007 when Dibling was just a toddler. The Kirkby-born star, who is now Moyes’ first team coach and one of his most trusted lieutenants, was initially a slow burner and often had to play second fiddle to Nuno Valente and centre-back Joleon Lescott during his early months with the Blues but would develop into their best left-back since World Cup winner Ray Wilson.
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