Sean Dyche admits Leeds have unlocked Dominic Calvert-Lewin in way Everton ‘could never’ manage | OneFootball

Sean Dyche says a new setting and lighter burden have helped Dominic Calvert-Lewin thrive at Leeds, a freedom Everton could not quite provide.

Calvert-Lewin left Everton as a free agent last summer after nine years, joining Leeds with doubts over his fitness. He had started fewer than 20 Premier League games in three of his previous four seasons and had not hit double figures since 2020/21.

Since a league debut against Newcastle in August, he has not missed a top-flight match through injury, sitting out only the 2-2 draw at Chelsea due to illness. That availability has helped him reach 11 goals and earn an England call-up last month.

“We tried, we did all sorts of things to protect him, and tried to release the pressure off him to allow his body time to recover,” Dyche told talkSPORT. “He was close, but we could never get him full-out freedom to go sprint and play; he has found that at Leeds.”

“At Everton, it was sort of, ‘when is he back?’ for a few years, and maybe that was a burden to carry.”

Despite that tally, he has scored only once in the league since early February, after a winter burst of seven in six that secured December’s Premier League Player of the Month.

One of those came in a comeback 1-1 draw at Brentford, when he headed in a Willy Gnonto cross on 82 minutes.

“I’m feeling good,” Calvert-Lewin told Sky Sports. “I think this is the fittest I’ve been in a long time and I've worked extremely hard to get in this position.”

Source: yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk