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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Sport
Michael Ball

Transfer mistake is costing Everton dearly amid frustrating Dominic Calvert-Lewin dilemma

Dominic Calvert-Lewin seems to be similar to Yerry Mina now in that if he gets a niggle, he doesn’t seem to be able to shake it off. It appears like he’s a player who needs to be 100% to play football.

Unfortunately, Dominic doesn’t seem to be fit at crucial moments and we’ve had another game go by against Aston Villa where you think it would have been different had he been out there.

He’ll be really frustrated that his body has been letting him down and will be doing everything he can to get back out on that football pitch.

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I know myself, it’s horrible being an injured player and not being able to help your team-mates. Sean Dyche will be hoping that Dominic can return sooner rather than later but we’ve got to be careful with him, there’s no point rushing him back for one or two games only for another setback. That was my concern at the start of the season, that we were trying to rely on Dominic for 40 games and there was absolutely no chance of that with the injuries he’s had and not getting in a like-for-like replacement has cost us dearly.

This is going to be a tough week for Everton with two away games back-to-back and we’ve got a massive test at Arsenal now. We came across them recently in Dyche’s first game but we know they’re going to have a lot of possession with technically very good players.

If we switch off like we did against Aston Villa then we’re going to get punished. Our away form has been atrocious for a long, long time and Nottingham Forest ended up getting a hiding last weekend at West Ham United so they’ll be determined to put things right in front of their own home fans.

It seems to have been a running joke that if teams need a win, they should come and play Everton. That’s the mentality as fans that we’re all sick of.

We don’t mind getting beat by a team that outperforms us but what I don’t like is getting out-battled by a team that shows more desire. If things don’t go your way in football you’ve got to have that right mentality to carry on and be ruthless but too often we’ve been a soft touch so Dyche needs to find that among these players to get us out of the situation we find ourselves in.

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