England won their opening 2022 World Cup qualifier against the minnows of San Marino and Everton striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin netted twice in the 5-0 win.
Well it was never likely to be a testing night for England at Wembley (mind you people have said that before and come unstuck – remember Iceland in 2016!), but still England wasted a lot of chances last night.
In the end the goals did come and it was good to see an Everton centre-forward contribute his share to the win for the Three Lions.
This was Calvert-Lewin’s first brace for his country and followed the goals he scored on his debut and then again against Ireland.
Although obviously San Marino are hardly representative of good quality opposition, it’s still pleasing to see Calvert-Lewin score again after a match against Burnley recently when he had missed a few good opportunities.
I’m still not sure if he can become a 25-goals-a-season type of striker, I think he perhaps needs a partner alongside him but I guess we will see over the next few seasons whether he can do so assuming he continues to be a key part of Carlo Ancelotti’s attack.
Recently the Toffees forward has been struggling a bit and hasn’t been able to maintain his early season goal-scoring form.
This has been through a combination of factors including the injuries to James Rodriguez who was proving a key creative source and then his own absence from the team for a number of weeks too.
He has also been hampered by the consequences of Carlo Ancelotti switching to a more defensive formation and set of tactics recently.
This means that Calvert-Lewin has been left isolated on his own up front sometimes without the necessary support. And he has also been starved of the sort of regular chances he was enjoying in the first month or so of the season.
Both of the Blues’ strikers goals were classic Calvert-Lewin strikes this season. The first was a solid header and the second an opportunistic and simple finish but one which is all about being in the right place at the right time.
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This second strike was proof of his improvement in getting into those places to score such goals, I doubt if a year ago he would have scored it.
As the Liverpool Echo points out Calvert-Lewin has now scored four goals in his first four international starts good going although again of course last night’s opponents hardly represented a great defensive test!
Now let’s see if he can continue that good form for the Toffees when their Premier League programme returns with a match against Crystal Palace a week on Monday.
Other Blues players who have featured for the countries this week included Seamus Coleman playing for the Republic of Ireland and Josh King with a cameo apperance for Norway, much like his appearances for Everton.
Two other regular Everton starters featured for their country at Under-21 level as Tom Davies and Ben Godfrey played for the young England team in their opening European Championship match.
Godfrey played for the entire game and Davies came on in the first half during the game. England however, were beaten 1-0 by Switzerland in that match.