As the half-time scores drifted in, two questions dominated the airwaves. Was Daniel Farke 45 minutes away from the sack? And just how underwhelming a summer signing had Dominic Calvert-Lewin been? As television and radio pundits agreed, the Leeds manager was in a precarious position, something extraordinary was unfolding in the away dressing room at the Etihad Stadium.
It was late November and Leeds were trailing 2-0 to Manchester City. While Farke decided the moment had come to rip up his long-preferred setup and switch from a back four and a lone striker to a 5-3-2, Calvert-Lewin was not content merely to ready himself for his introduction as a second-half substitute.
“I’ll never forget what happened at half-time at City,” says the Leeds attacking midfielder Brenden Aaronson. “Dom was laying into everyone, getting everybody going. That’s the kind of character he is. Dom always wants the best for everyone. He’s the guy who talks you through training and games, the guy who is there for you after bad games.”
Within minutes of stepping on to the pitch, Calvert-Lewin had scored his second goal for Leeds and, with the new formation working a treat, Lukas Nmecha equalised before Phil Foden’s stoppage-time winner spoiled Leeds’s party. No matter; a Leeds hierarchy understood to have been giving serious thought to replacing the German offered their manager another chance. A little more than a month on and Leeds are unbeaten in six games, collecting 10 points along the way.
As Leeds prepare for Manchester United’s visit to Elland Road on Sunday, Calvert-Lewin is playing with the supreme confidence of a striker who has seven goals in seven games. It would have been eight in seven but the 28-year-old had an effort ruled out for offside during Thursday’s draw at Liverpool. And the consensus among pundits is that the Sheffield-born forward is timing his run for a place in England’s World Cup squad to perfection.
So how has a player who joined Leeds as a free agent in August after leaving Everton morphed from a supposed has-been into one of the Premier League’s most feared strikers? Calvert-Lewin scored 12 league goals in his last three seasons at Goodison Park. If that was largely down to the hamstring injuries that led to him to miss 31 matches in five years, mental fatigue also entered the equation.
Opting to reject Everton’s offer of an extended deal and spend the summer fathoming out what to do next meant Calvert-Lewin also missed pre-season training. Counterintuitively, that rest period would prove an epiphany. “I was pushing my daughter on the swing when other players were in pre-season,” he says. “It showed me two things; I needed the break with my family, but it also made me realise how much I missed football and that I’m far from finished.”
The latter message has been reinforced by Farke. If his decision to concentrate on building the player’s physical resilience rather than managing his minutes has paid off, Calvert-Lewin’s transformation into a lean, mean scoring machine is also about psychology. All the best managers are gifted storytellers and Farke has reaffirmed Calvert-Lewin’s faith in the talent that earned him 11 England caps, the last in 2021, and Thomas Tuchel is widely expected to provide No 12 this spring.
“This is the fittest I’ve been in a long time,” he says. “When you’re tarred with a certain brush, it’s quite hard to shake off. So it was about me being mentally tough, hanging on in there and, step by step, day by day, watching the tide turn and starting to score goals again. I like to think that when I get the service I’m lethal in the box.”
Farke’s shift to a 5-3-2 and a quicker, more direct approach has emphasised his centre-forward’s ability to hold the ball up and link play. Meanwhile, operating with an attacking partner has enhanced Calvert-Lewin’s ability to steal a march on markers by invariably sensing where a cross or through pass will drop before the ball is even played.
“Dominic’s excellent off the pitch as well as on it,” says Farke of the first Leeds player to score in six consecutive top-tier matches since John McCole in 1959-60. “He’s a great human being, a great teammate, a hard worker. We’re pretty blessed to have him.”
“It’s freeing to be enjoying my football like I am at the moment,” Calvert-Lewin says. “I do feel this is the second phase of my career. I’ve still got so much I want to achieve.
“You go through many moments when the tide is against you and you have to keep pushing against it. But I feel I’m swimming with the tide now.”
