Dominic Calvert-Lewin (“DCL”), my word what an athletic specimen. Arsenal have been loosely linked with the English striker for quite some time now as a replacement for Auba/Laca but with Everton fighting relegation at this point, I find it very hard for them to give up on their talismanic striker up top but let me hurt myself again and dive into what makes DCL such a wanted man in North London. DCL broke into Everton 5 years ago but turned into a star in the 20/21 season. Just header after header, tap-in after tap-in, he turned into one of the league’s lethal strikers last seasons with over 21 goals in all competitions for Everton. The thought of DCL being the our striker up top for Ødegaard, Gabi, Saka and ESR is something I’m desperate for but would mean Arteta would have to switch these things up going forward in how he uses the striker. Future Mikel can worry about that later but we first need to nab this guy up as we inevitably will miss out on Vlahović. Let me go into what we can expect out of DCL if for some miracle he finds himself at the Emirates:
APEX PREDATOR IN THE BOX (Heading): Immediately when you watch DCL up top, the first thing you always notice is his aerial prowess. Standing at 6 ft 2in, what DCL does better than just about every forward in the world may be outside of Lewandowski and Cristiano is time the jumps on his headers to allow himself to meet the ball at the peak of his jump. When a striker is able to master this skill with of course an exceptional amount of athleticism (like if I did this well, it wouldn’t mean jack shit), it doesn’t matter what defender is covering you, if the cross is played in well enough, the striker will get clean contact with the ball. Absolutely nothing a defender can do in these type of situations. DCL scored 16 league goals last season with 7 of them coming from his head, let’s go into some examples of his aerial prowess starting off his goal in the Merseyside Derby:
