By Opta Analyst | Created at 2026-09-15 13:33:08 | Updated at 2026-09-15 14:31:41
1 hour ago
Most had written Dominic Calvert-Lewin off as a top-flight striker, but not Daniel Farke. The German has got the best out of his star man, and Leeds United are reaping the rewards.
Looking at some of the replies from supporters on social media when Leeds United announced that they’d signed Dominic Calvert-Lewin on a free transfer in August 2025, it was clear that the majority thought it was a bad decision.
“I don’t get it at all.”
“Are you any good at football? No! How tall are you? 6’2… you’ve got the job!”
“Hope they’ve employed more medical staff!”
“I thought we wanted a striker?”
Those were just some of the comments from fans slating the decision to bring the striker to the club ahead of their first season back in the Premier League after winning the Championship title in 2024-25.
To be fair, doubts were somewhat understandable. Calvert-Lewin had just scored three goals in 26 Premier League games for Everton the previous season, and he was supposed to be the man to keep Leeds in the top flight with his goals?
The critics have been forced to eat their words since, though. In another outstanding performance leading the line in Monday’s 4-1 win over Newcastle United, he grabbed another goal, and he was unlucky not to be credited with another too, his header deflecting off Jayden Bogle’s head and into the net.
Calvert-Lewin has now scored in each of his last five home Premier League appearances, becoming only the second Leeds player to achieve that after Mark Viduka between March and August 2003. In fact, no English player has scored in six consecutive top-flight appearances at home for Leeds since Arthur Hydes between October and December 1932 – a run he’ll be looking to end on Saturday when they host Crystal Palace at Elland Road.
It’s likely that even the man who brought him to Leeds, Daniel Farke, is surprised at how well it’s gone for his striker since signing. The German stressed his importance to his side following Monday night’s win, saying: “I expect him to lead the group. He’s taken responsibility, never in doubt that he scores goals. It’s not just the goals, though, the way he plays is outstanding. He’s one of the standout strikers in this league.”
The stats back that claim up, too. It’s now 16 Premier League goals for Calvert-Lewin since he signed for Leeds last summer – no English player has more in the competition in that time. Of course, these numbers aren’t close to the output of world-class forwards like Harry Kane (37), Erling Haaland (31) and Kylian Mbappé (31) in league competition over the same period, but it’s the return to form that’s the main talking point surrounding the 29-year-old.
Sixteen goals from 39 games is a decent record in the Premier League, and certainly not something to downplay, but it’s the fact that his previous 16 Premier League goals came across 91 appearances that displays just how much the transfer has paid off for Leeds.
When questioned if Calvert-Lewin could produce a 20-goal season for Leeds in 2026-27, Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football guest and former Wolves and Luton Town boss Rob Edwards was unequivocal.
“Yeah, he can, because of the chances that he’s getting. And the way that Leeds play now, it suits him,” he said. “If he gets it right and he gets hot, there’s no reason why he can’t get that – he’s such a handful to play against.”
Getting ‘hot’, or picking up form in front of goal, is something that evaded Calvert-Lewin for long spells during his final four seasons as an Everton player.
Between the beginning of 2021-22 and the end of 2024-25, Calvert-Lewin scored just 12 non-penalty goals across 6,257 minutes. Those goals came from shots totalling 27.6 xG – an underperformance of 15.6. Across those four seasons, no player in the top five European leagues had as big an underperformance between non-penalty goals and non-penalty xG as he did.
Valid questions were raised about his finishing because of that statistic, but as Edwards implied, strikers often have hot and cold streaks. Unfortunately for Calvert-Lewin, that cold streak went on for a long time – four seasons to be precise.
Now, however, Calvert-Lewin has rediscovered his form in front of goal. He’s still underperformed his Premier League non-penalty xG during his time at Leeds but he is much closer to scoring in line with it (12 goals from 14.4 xG). His 15.2% conversion rate from those shots is below that of the top six goalscorers in the Premier League from non-penalty shots since 2024-25, too. However, he’s also more than just a goalscorer for Leeds.
Speaking after Leeds’ 4-1 thrashing of Newcastle on Sky Sports, pundit Jamie Carragher deemed him “unplayable” before adding, “he is the type of player you think as an ex-centre-back, ‘I am glad I am not playing now’.”
Carragher, a player with more than 500 Premier League appearances to his name, as well as 38 international caps for England, was never one to shy away from a physical battle on the pitch. Calvert-Lewin is a physically imposing forward at 6-foot-2 and powerfully built, but he also works incredibly hard out of possession, and that causes opponents all sorts of headaches.
Calvert-Lewin is integral to Leeds’ out-of-possession play, most often leading the team press in the attacking half of the pitch. Since the start of last season, he tops the Premier League rankings for pressures applied (3,605) and high pressures applied (2,613) across the pitch and also tops the same metrics in the opposition half (2,722 pressures, 2,020 high pressures) and the final third (1,747 pressures, 1,292 high pressures).
Of the 19 players to play the majority of their minutes as a striker in the Premier League last season, Calvert-Lewin averaged the fourth-highest distance covered when his team were out of possession (5.8km per 90). So far this season, only Hull’s Oli McBurnie (25.4km) has covered more ground when his team have been out of possession than the Leeds striker (21.9km).
He is also a perfect forward for Leeds to have, as one of the more direct sides in the Premier League. No player has engaged in more aerial duels in the competition than Calvert-Lewin since he arrived at Leeds (353), while he’s had 29 shots from headers – only Haaland (32) has attempted more.
Last season was just the third Premier League campaign in which he’d reached double figures for goals (14), after back-to-back seasons under Carlo Ancelotti at Everton in 2019-20 and 2020-21.
Across Ancelotti’s 58-game tenure in the league at Everton, only three players scored more Premier League goals than Calvert-Lewin (24). None of those goals came from penalties either, with only Kane (27) and Mohamed Salah (25) scoring more non-penalty goals across those two and a half seasons in the competition.
Ancelotti was clearly a fan of Calvert-Lewin. “He is a complete striker. It is not easy to find a striker with these characteristics,” the Italian boss stated just under a year into his spell on Merseyside. “For the strikers, we do some individual exercises but nothing special. I think it was more mental or tactical to be focused in the box.”
Despite his incredible work rate in the attacking half, the penalty area is where Calvert-Lewin is at his most dangerous. All 18 of his competitive goals for Leeds have come from inside the area, while only under Sean Dyche (16.2%) has he had a higher proportion of his touches inside the box than under Farke (15.1%) (considering only managers he’s played 500+ Premier League mins under). The third highest rate came under Ancelotti (13.8%).
Eleven of his 12 England caps came when Ancelotti was his club manager, scoring all four of his goals for the Three Lions in that period. He did earn his first England cap in five years as a second-half substitute in their pre-World Cup friendly against Uruguay in March, but a World Cup call always felt extremely unlikely, and so it proved.
It feels like now might be a perfect opportunity for him to enter Thomas Tuchel’s plans. The first post-World Cup England squad is announced on Friday (18 September) for the UEFA Nations League fixtures against Spain and Czechia, and there is a decent chance Calvert-Lewin gets the call.
It’s clear that age isn’t on Calvert-Lewin’s side to be any kind of long-term successor to Kane in the national team, but nobody is asking him to be that. Ollie Watkins and Ivan Toney were Tuchel’s backup striking options at the World Cup, but with both now playing in Saudi Arabia and questions raised about the quality of the league, now feels like an opportune time for someone else to be given a shot with one eye on Euro 2028.
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