Speaking on the All to Play For podcast, Wes Brown has divulged what Wayne Rooney told him about Dominic Calvert-Lewin while the pair were teammates at Everton.
Brown and Rooney are of course big mates from their time together at Manchester United, and the ex-United defender claims that Rooney saw Calvert-Lewin’s meteoric rise coming a mile off.
Brown was speaking highly of Calvert-Lewin on the podcast before sharing what Rooney told him about the Premier League’s current top goalscorer.
“He understands that he wants to be that main man up front now, I can see it in his eyes, he’s got a bit more maturity about him now, and even though he was a big lad, he looks stronger as well,” Brown said.
“He’s not scared of these defenders any more, and he’s more focused, you can see it in his eyes,
“I always remember, Wayne Rooney when he went back, he said ‘he’ll be a top player’ about Calvert Lewin.
“Yeah, yeah he said that, it was when he was very young and he’d come on as sub a few times, he said ‘he’ll be a top player.”
“That’s a big shout that.” Joe Cole added after Brown told his story.
The fact that Rooney saw Calvert-Lewin’s talents at such a young age shows just how good he is.
The striker was only 20 years old when Rooney came back to Goodison Park, and he wasn’t lighting up the Premier League by any stretch of the imagination, netting just four goals in 32 appearances that season.
However, as Brown says, his increased maturity has seen his striking instincts improve, and now he’s fulfilling the potential that Rooney said he had a few years ago.
As Cole says, Rooney predicting big things for DCL at such a young age was a big shout, but he has certainly been proven right on this one.
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