Some players explode onto the scene straight away, while others take time to live up to their potential. For Everton‘s Dominic Calvert-Lewin, there has suddenly been an explosion but it has taken time for it to happen. This was a player not delivering on the mountain of praise heaped on him but now, he is the joint top scorer in the Premier League this season.
After a run of nine games without a goal before the restart and just 24 goals in 114 Premier League games, Calvert-Lewin now has six in the first four league games in 2020/21, along with his hat-trick in the League Cup victory over West Ham United and a debut goal for England in the friendly against Wales. This is not a bolt out of the blue but rather a gradual burst that very few people saw coming.
How Dominic Calvert-Lewin Turned His Form Around
Faith From Ancelotti
If anything, Calvert-Lewin was an initial victim of his talent. Praise was heaped on his shoulders and with that came expectation, and as he struggled to get going in the first few years of his Everton career, doubts crept in about whether he would be good enough at the highest level. Yet among all that, manager Carlo Ancelotti spent a large proportion of the club’s budget on improving his midfield, keeping the faith in Calvert-Lewin to deliver – a decision that is now proving to be a masterstroke.
Calvert-Lewin himself acknowledges the difficult journey it is been to live up to his potential. “It’s definitely not an overnight success,” he told Sky Sports. “There has been a lot of work, effort and concentration to get where I am now. I’ve gone through different experiences, good and tough, to mould me into the player I am now.
“I’ve had my football education in the Premier League in the eyes of everybody to see. I’m definitely not the player I was four years ago when I first joined Everton. I’ve grown and matured since then. I’m 23 now and I always knew it was important that I learned, even when the chips were down, not to get too caught up in where I was at that time but to focus on where I was going.”
So how has this turnaround in form come about? What has changed? Firstly, Calvert-Lewin is using his height (6’2″) to his advantage much more, winning the joint-most duels (17) of any striker in the Premier League this season. This backs up his impressive numbers last season in this metric when only Sebastian Haller and Troy Deeney managed more than the 23-year-old’s 169. Furthermore, three of his six league goals this season have been from headers, all of which have come from set-pieces.
In truth, Calvert-Lewin’s aerial presence is widely recognized but what perhaps is more surprising, given his size, and what separates him from other strikers is that he has pace to boot. He ranks top among Everton players for highest recorded speeds (35.12 km/h) this season, while he made more high-intensity sprints than any player on either side during Everton’s 1-0 win at Tottenham Hotspur in their first match of the season.
Better Positions
The physical attributes are there but Dominic Calvert-Lewin is now spending more time in central positions, as opposed to wide areas, which is where Everton liked to deploy him in his earlier days as a forward, due to his impressive work rate off the ball. As a result, he is having more touches in the penalty area per match than in previous seasons and more shots inside the six-yard box, with his 1.5 being the highest average of any player in the Premier League so far this season and far more than his 0.4 during 2019/20. With the extra quality of James Rodriguez added to the likes of Richarlison, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Seamus Coleman, Calvert-Lewin is now having more opportunities to score.
“He is more focused in the box,” Ancelotti added. “He is efficient and really clinical. He is doing a fantastic job in the moment, he is really on fire and scoring a lot of goals. He’s in a very good moment. Whether he’s the best (English striker) I don’t know, but I don’t care. For me, for us, he is.”
Calvert-Lewin himself emphasised his enjoyment of the extra responsibility given to him by Ancelotti, who compared him to his former striker Filippo Inzaghi. “That analogy from Carlo was more about an emphasis on being in the right place at the right time. Not to say that I am a carbon copy of Inzaghi but that there are elements of his game that I am showing in my game – one-touch finishes and being in the right areas. In the system he is playing at Everton it has allowed me to be more focused on being the focal point for the team and doing my job, which is scoring goals. He filled me with confidence straight away. For a manager who has achieved what he has and worked with some great players, that gave me a massive boost.”
What will now be interesting is to see whether Dominic Calvert-Lewin can continue his goalscoring form. Of course, scoring at his current rate of over a goal a game will be extremely hard to maintain but there is every hope that this could be his first prolific season at Everton. He has added to his physical attributes by becoming a smarter striker that gives himself a better chance of scoring and as a result has finally developed into the player that everyone at the club hoped he would be.
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