LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 5: Dominic Calvert-Lewin of Everton argues with referee Craig Pawson during the Premier League match between Everton FC and Newcastle United FC at Goodison Park on October 5, 2024 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
Everton analysis after the Premier League clash with Ipswich at Portman Road.
Centre-forwards will – quite rightly – ultimately always be based on their goal output but on a day when his team-mates showed him how it should be done, Dominic Calvert-Lewin still produced the kind of all-round centre-forward’s performance to show why he remains so important to how this Everton side plays.
The last time the Blues number nine came up against Arijanet Muric, the Kosovo keeper gifted him a goal as the Yorkshireman had the speed of thought to realise that the then-Burnley custodian had a penchant for taking an unnecessary touch that could play him into trouble.
That gamble paid off as Everton – having gone on a club record winless run in the Premier League stretching beyond Christmas to Easter (since they previously defeated the Clarets) – defeated Vincent Kompany’s side.
Here, Calvert-Lewin had at least a couple of more clear-cut opportunities to find the net but unlike the dead-eyed Ndiaye and Michael Keane, he failed to convert them.
As a top Premier League striker and only the fourth Everton player to net 50 times in the competition, the 27-year-old should really be more convincing in one-on-one situations and after his recent misses at Aston Villa, he suffered a similar fate here after fashioning a chance himself and should again have made the net bulge with a chance right at the end of the game.
It wasn’t his day in this respect, but Calvert-Lewin still led Ipswich’s defenders a merry dance all afternoon, showing that while Jarrad Branthwaite is the Blues’ most valuable asset, it was arguably even more important to retain the striker’s services over the summer when it came to ensuring the club’s historic final season at Goodison Park proves to be one without dramas.
No Branthwaite, no problem
Back on September 28, Jarrad Branthwaite made a triumphant return for Everton as he made his first appearance of the season to help the Blues record a first ever Premier League comeback win under Sean Dyche.
There was a danger therefore in thinking that Everton needed the presence of their breakthrough star of last season in order to be successful.
Branthwaite is a potentially generational talent. Anyone who has watched him quickly develop into one of the most-dominant centre-backs in the Premier League in recent months can see that.
The Blues were absolutely right to consider a brace of penny-pinching offers from Manchester United for his services derisory. This wasn’t smart business from Sir Jim Ratcliffe – the man who wants someone else to foot the bill to rebuild Old Trafford – but rather downright insulting.
