Credit: Imago/Getty Images

James Barker

Mon 27 April 2026 20:10, UK

Dominic Calvert-Lewin wouldn’t have changed Everton‘s Premier League fortunes if he hadn’t left on a free last summer.

The 29-year-old made the decision to call time on his Everton career following the conclusion of the 2024-25 season.

He’d struggled with injury problems and a lack of consistent production during his final few years on Merseyside, after joining the Toffees all the way back in the summer of 2016.

273 Everton appearances later and over 70 goals later, the England international believed a fresh start was required to get his stagnating career back on track.

This season’s summer transfer window saw him pen a three-year contract with Leeds United last August, and that has proven to be a very wise move by the experienced centre-forward.

Leeds play to Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s strengths & Everton don’t

It’s been suggested that Everton miss Calvert-Lewin’s presence in attack, and it’s true that David Moyes has lacked consistent and quality centre-forward play this season.

Whilst in good form currently, five of Beto’s eight Premier League goals this term have been scored in his last six games.

Meanwhile, Thierno Barry, Tyler Dibling and Tyrique George respectively have all made little to no real impact for the Toffees in 2025-26, which has been reflected by Everton’s struggle to score and create goals.

Having Calvert-Lewin at Hill Dickinson Stadium, however, would not have made a notable difference to that issue for Everton either.

Leeds have been playing to his strengths this season, whereas Moyes’ side haven’t been, as detailed via the underlying numbers from their respective Premier League campaigns.

As per FotMob, Leeds have created 82 big chances compared to Everton’s 61, whilst also playing 4.8 accurate crosses per match as opposed to the Toffees’ 3.9.

Crosses into the box is precisely what Calvert-Lewin wants and thrives off, but with more inverted wingers in Iliman Ndiaye and Jack Grealish in particular, putting high volumes of crosses into the box hasn’t really been their attacking strategy.

Dwight McNeil is a winger who likes to put a cross in, but even so, the quality of those has been found wanting more often than not, which is exemplified by the fact he’s registered just one assist from 21 Premier League games.

Leeds are also third behind only Arsenal (20) and Man United (16) for set-piece goals with 15 this season, which is another huge area of strength for Calvert-Lewin, whereas Everton have scored just nine.

Leeds hand Everton transfer blueprint to target man success

However, the interesting thing here is that most of the service Calvert-Lewin has received for Leeds this season hasn’t been through wingers, rather, the full-backs/wing-backs.

Indeed, Daniel Farke often switches between playing with full-backs and wing-backs, but either way, both Gabriel Gudmundsson and Jayden Bogle are both strong and attack-minded players in those positions.

Gudmundsson, per FotMob, averages 0.82 accurate crosses per game this season, which is considerably higher than Jake O’Brien’s 0.42 and Vitalii Mykolenko’s 0.66 respectively.

So, whether it was Beto or Calvert-Lewin leading the Everton line this season, their production would most likely have been very similar, as it’s not a target man issue up top, it’s the supply chain to them.

Leeds’ success with Calvert-Lewin and their high-volume crossing approach needs to be the blueprint for Everton to follow when constructing their team moving forward.

If they are to stick with the target man presence at the spearpoint of their attack, then they need to do away with inverted wingers who prefer to dribble and cut in rather than cross, whilst also finding more adventurous and attack-minded full-backs too.

Updated 24/7 with expert analysis from the heart of Goodison Park.