The debate around Calvert Lewin is unlikely to ever really be solved. If what you want from a centre forward is a lad who scored 20+ goals then I am not sure it's ever likely to be him on a regular basis. I don't completely rule it out, because he's got a lot of natural ability and shown an enormous propensity to improve but he's by no means a natural goalscorer.
If that is what people want, then that is very reasonable. My only contention would be, that in my lifetime of watching Everton we have had 1 such natural goalscorer. The year he scored more than 20 league goals he left. Any orthodox reading of our financial situation would indicate we could not really have afforded to pay him the wages needed to stay. I don't mean to be glib, but the likelihood is that we could not attract such a proven goalscorer and if we stumbled upon one it would be very difficult to get them to stay.
Calvert Lewin helps the team enormously though, in spite of not being the above. I watched on Saturday and felt that I would hate to play against him. He is quicker, stronger and now ore aggressive than you. It's hard to go tight or drop off him. I would have found him very hard to handle. Likewise if you played with him, you would absolutely love a lad like that in your team. As a defender, if you are stuck you can hit a ball 50 yards down a channel and he makes things happen. It will make you look a fantastic defender at playing the ball out, as he will make something of those punts.
He is now integral to how we are trying to play. On Saturday on at least half a dozen occasions in the first half he won balls he had no right too, or at the very least caused them to conceded possession deep into their half when we were on the back foot in a phase of play. That sort of stuff is invaluable. People talk of the high press a lot, but having a forward who can do what he does saps the energy and enthusiasm of that.
As a midfield player, you can press the Everton backline but you know you will be facing a ball going 40 yards over your head and a likelihood that when it lands it will be deep into your half where you need to be. After a period of time, you just stop pressing. Yes it allows the opposition to gain control in the game, but you don't have to keep doing mindless shuttles.
For me he will be here a while yet, and I am not expecting him to finish lots of chances at games like Fulham away, there will be many more games like that from him but it's a bit irrelevant as what he gives us in general. I hope he does start taking chances more for the record, but don't anticipate there will be enormous improvement or that there needs to be.
We are a mid table team and he is the perfect striker for where we are at. As and when we get to the top 6 level we can have a discussion about what is required from our strikers. However until then it seems to me to be a bit of a pointless discussion. Lets get to the position first before we have that discussion.
If we were smart, we would sign a young forward and ease them in next season with the intention of challenging Calvert Lewin for the season after.