Dominic Calvert-Lewin: From non-league loan to England call-up

No-one has scored more Premier League headers than Dominic Calvert-Lewin since the start of last season, but his leap to prominence is no surprise to the man who signed him for Everton.

Former Toffees defender and now academy director David Unsworth says he is still “amazed” that he managed to buy the forward from Sheffield United for a “cheeky” bid of a reported £1.5m in 2016.

He first spotted Calvert-Lewin as a 15-year-old in the gym when he was head of the Blades’ academy, and quickly realised he was “a talent who stuck out”.

“What first caught my eye was his gym work,” Unsworth tells BBC Sport. “We’d be there in the evenings and his power from a standing jump was the best I’ve ever seen. He was doing a lot of squats, and jumps at an incredible height onto these wooden boxes.

“He had a few growth issues – his legs were growing at a different rate to his body – but that was the first time I saw him and thought ‘wow, there’s an incredible athlete there’.”

Fastest Premier League players this season
Player	Top speed (km/h)
Tariq Lamptey (Brighton)	36.6
Kyle Walker (Man City)	36.6
Nathan Tella (Southampton)	35.6
Oliver Burke (Sheff Utd)	35.2
Aboubakar Kamara (Fulham)	35.2
Dominic Calvert-Lewin (Everton)	35.1
Jack Grealish (Aston Villa)	35.1
Jamal Lewis (Newcastle)	35.1
Harvey Barnes (Leicester)	35.1
Kenny Tete (Fulham)	35.1

There is far more to Calvert-Lewin than his athleticism, though. He has since developed into “a complete striker”, according to Everton manager Carlo Ancelotti, who has also coached Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid and Filippo Inzaghi at AC Milan.

Calvert-Lewin’s nine goals in all competitions this season have helped Everton make a perfect start to their campaign and they sit top of the Premier League table.

It earned the Under-20 World Cup winner his first call-up to the senior England squad, with matches against Wales, Belgium and Denmark over the next week offering a chance for him to impress.

“Every hurdle he has encountered, he has jumped over with ease,” says Unsworth.

Overcoming adversity at Sheffield United

Sheffield United may rue the fact they let Calvert-Lewin go, especially as they have just paid a club record £23.5m for former Liverpool striker Rhian Brewster, who is only 20 years old.

In 2014 the Blades were stuck in League One and desperate to get out. The club failed to win promotion under managers Nigel Clough and Nigel Adkins before they struck gold with Chris Wilder. Yet all three preferred tried-and-tested players to youngsters.

It was not an environment to experiment with the likes of Calvert-Lewin, according to Sheffield United’s former head of academy Nick Cox. A lack of opportunities caused frustration with the teenager, who was keen to establish himself in the first team.

“We got to a point where his expectations of himself were exceeding the opportunities that came his way,” says Cox, who now has the same role at Manchester United.

“He found under-16s and under-18s football too easy and, as a local lad, he was desperate to go route one through the system, but we had to find another way.”

So over a cup of tea in the gym one Sunday morning, the pair of them got a white board out and navigated a path to first-team football, which included a change in position for the then midfielder and a pivotal loan spell at Stalybridge Celtic.