Everton record transfer sets Dominic Calvert-Lewin challenge and backs David Moyes decision

Everton record transfer sets Dominic Calvert-Lewin challenge and backs David Moyes decision

EXCLUSIVE: Tony Cottee spoke to ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley about the current Blues side after appearing as the latest guest on the Goodison Park: My Home series

Dominic Calvert-Lewin and David Moyes (inset) during an Everton training session at Finch Farm on January 13, 2025 (Image: Tony McArdle/Everton FC Official Photography Library/SmartFrame )

Tony Cottee believes someone in the Everton side needs to step up to the plate under David Moyes to save his former club from the drop and has urged striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin to be that man. The Blues have struck just 15 Premier League goals in the first half of this season and have failed to find the net in eight of their last 10 fixtures with their number nine currently enduring a 15-game drought.

Cottee, who was top scorer out of five of his six full seasons at Everton, netting 99 times in 241 matches, has bemoaned the lack of natural finishers in the modern game. Speaking as the latest guest on Goodison Park: My Home, he told the ECHO: “Where have they gone? You’re not allowed to be a goalscorer anymore.

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“You’ve got to be an all-round forward, you’ve got to be able to play right, left, number 10, number nine. Just let them get on with it.

“If you’re a goalscorer, play to their strengths. Give them the service and let them score the goals.

“I think it’s been patently obvious, I think Romelu Lukaku was probably the last one at Everton who was a regular goalscorer. Dominic Calvert-Lewin, I like him, I think he’s a good player, but he’s had a lot of injuries and even now when he’s come back, he’s not been consistently scoring the goals.

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“His contract is up at the end of the season, so it will be interesting to see what happens there. Whether Moyesy can get a little bit more out of him, you’d like to think he will do, the challenge is there for him, start scoring goals – do your job – your job as the striker is to score goals.”

Cottee, who plundered half a dozen hat-tricks for Everton – the most from a single player at the club since Dixie Dean who is streets ahead on a super-human 37 – after his British record £2.2m transfer from West Ham United, added: “If you’re not getting the service then tell them. I always used to have a go at the wide players if they weren’t crossing the ball and getting it into the box.

“If they’re crossing it and you’re not in the middle then they should be having a go at you. That’s how it works in football. “Everton need someone to step up to the plate. It might be Calvert-Lewin, it might be someone else.

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“They might be able to get someone in during the transfer window but January is tough and everyone is looking for a goalscorer. It’s not going to be easy, Moyesy might have to work with what he’s got to get the best out of those players.

“If you haven’t got a goalscorer up front, you need to get the team scoring goals from midfield, full-backs pushing up or centre-halves from corners, whatever it might be. Someone, somewhere has got to start scoring for Everton.”

Tony Cottee will be appearing soon on Goodison Park: My Home

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Having watched Moyes manage both Everton and then West Ham, two of the clubs closest to his heart, boyhood Hammer Cottee, who had two spells at the Boleyn Ground as a player either side of his time on Merseyside, believes the returning Scot is the right man to guide the Blues to Premier League safety. The 59-year-old aid: “I’m glad to see David Moyes back, absolutely. I think the club needed someone to come in and steady the ship.

“Dychey is an old team-mate of mine (at Millwall), I know Dychey well and he’s done a great job, but I think sometimes, your managerial spell runs its course and you get to a stage where you can’t do a lot else. All my Evertonian friends told me about how the Bournemouth game wasn’t very good and they didn’t have a shot.

“They had a few decent draws last month when had a little run where it was a case of ‘we won’t concede’ but they had little chance of scoring either. Eventually, you’ve got to start winning some games and they need to find someone to score some goals for the club.

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“I think Ipswich are going to give a real fight of it this year, one of my other old clubs Leicester are going to have a fight – those two teams might go down but they’re going to fight – and while I think Southampton are going to be tailed off, there will be two spaces.

“If you’re not careful, you can get sucked into the relegation battle, which Everton have. I think Moyesy is a good appointment, he knows what to do and he did it at West Ham – twice he saved them – he’ll get results and help to put foundations in place.

“The most important thing of all, they must be in the Premier League next season. If you’re going into a new stadium, there’s going to be nothing worse than the first game in the Championship, that’s not where Everton need to be.

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“They’ve been in the top flight for over 70 years with Arsenal being the only club who have been there longer, so Everton need to be in the top flight and I think the best chance to do that is to have David Moyes in charge.”

As someone who survived the first of Everton’s final day ‘great escapes’ from relegation over three decades ago, Cottee is adamant the Blues need to look beyond mere Premier League survival, but he believes that under Moyes they can start raising the bar of expectations again after several lean years. He said: “The way he set West Ham up, they were so well-suited to play in Europe. I went to a lot of European games, home and away, and West Ham were a very good European team.

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“In the Premier League, he got them in the top half in three out of the four seasons he was there. The only season in which they didn’t finish in the top 10, they won the Conference League.

“You know what you’re going to get with David Moyes. It’s not going to be easy but with the 11 years he had before, nine of them were top eight finishes, while he also got them to the FA Cup final and they qualified for the Champions League.

“If he can replicate the kind of levels that he reached before at Everton and what he did at West Ham, he’ll put those foundations in place. David is in his 60s now so I don’t know how much longer he’d want to manage, but what you do know is that he will put the structure in place and help everyone to settle into the new stadium.

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“I think Evertonians should be really pleased that the club have chosen David Moyes. He gives you stability and that’s what the club needs.

“There’s been too much going on in recent seasons with having to win the last game to stay in the Premier League, that’s not good enough for Everton. I remember when we played Wimbledon in 1994, someone got some champagne out and I was looking at them thinking: ‘Is that what Everton’s all about? You’re celebrating staying in the Premier League. Really? We’re spraying champagne because we’re staying in the Premier League. That’s not good enough for Everton Football Club'.

“Everton have got to be in the top half of the Premier League and having a go in the cups. Winning on the last day of the season to stay in the Premier League is not an achievement for Everton Football Club.

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“I know it’s been tough, but hopefully with David Moyes and the new stadium, those days will soon be behind everyone.”

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