Anzhi sign Lokomotiv's Yeshchenko

Moscow - Anzhi Makhachkala football club has signed Russia left-back Andrei Yeshchenko from Lokomotiv Moscow.

Yeshchenko, 28, joins on a “long-term” contract, Anzhi said Saturday, and is the big-spending Caucasus team’s first signing of the winter transfer window. The transfer fee was not disclosed.

The nomadic Yeshchenko is now at his ninth club in a decade in a career that has featured spells with Dynamo Moscow, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk and Dynamo Kiev.

He has played 17 league games for Lokomotiv this season, scoring once.

In recent months, he has broken into Fabio Capello’s Russian national team, winning the first of his four caps in a 4-0 defeat of Israel in September.

Anzhi have been short of a dedicated left-back this season, and coach Guus Hiddink prefers to use ex-Chelsea player Yuri Zhirkov as an out-and-out winger with center-back Rasim Tagirbekov employed as makeshift cover on the left.

Anzhi are second in the Russian Premier League, two points behind leaders CSKA Moscow, and will face Germany’s Hannover in the first knockout round of the Europa League next month, while Lokomotiv are eighth in the league.

Friday, Anzhi chairman Konstantin Remchukov dismissed reports the team was interested in signing England legend David Beckham, calling the claims “complete nonsense”.