As Anthony Gordon prepares to take centre stage in a World Cup quarter-final, Everton FC correspondent Joe Thomas reflects on his time at Everton and what has happened since
Everton academy graduate Anthony Gordon was one of the stars of England's dramatic win over Mexico in the World Cup
Everton academy graduate Anthony Gordon was one of the stars of England's dramatic win over Mexico in the World Cup
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Brazil would have been a fitting opponent for Anthony Gordon in this weekend’s World Cup quarter-finals.
It was manager Carlo Ancelotti who gave the winger his Premier League debut against West Ham United back in 2020. He then started him later that year in a Merseyside derby, giving the then-19-year-old another taste of stardom.
And it was one of Ancelotti’s assistants at Brazil, Paul Clement, who nurtured Gordon through his emergence as a key player at Goodison Park under Frank Lampard.
Ancelotti and Lampard, two of the biggest names in football, both saw something special in the youngster from Kirkdale. Skinny but lightning quick, the only obstacle ever likely to get in his way was his own confidence, which ebbed and flowed in the period between his first senior appearance, in a Europa League game in Cyprus at the age of 16, and his breakthrough under Ancelotti.
He was lucky in the mentors he had at Everton’s Finch Farm training ground, with Seamus Coleman and Leighton Baines each keen to help him progress. They helped him understand the demands on a modern footballer and shaped a player whose commitment was never in question.
Brazil may have crumbled against Norway, preventing a poignant Everton-related reunion. That England will be the next team attempting to stop Erling Haaland has much to do with Gordon - and Jordan Pickford, who has saved penalties from both for the Blues.
The attribute that stood out in Gordon’s stunning performance against Mexico, his best in an England shirt, was his intensity. Neither the atmosphere, the occasion nor the altitude slowed him down at the Azteca. That drive was consistent with his development as a player, both physically and psychologically.
As he rose through the academy ranks it was that intensity that those around him noted most. It was not just what he could do - and keep on doing - on the pitch. It was his appetite to learn off it. Gordon is intensely curious about the world, about people and always wants answers. He wanted to improve and he wanted to understand how best to do it.
That translated from reading - after Ancelotti gave him his debut he picked up Dr Steve Peters' book The Chimp Paradox, which focuses on mind management, to demanding answers over his opportunities, or lack of them: When he was left out of the first team squad at the start of the following season he sought Ancelotti directly to understand why, something the former Real Madrid boss loved. Gordon was told he represented the future of Everton at that point, though he ended the campaign on loan to Preston to taste regular senior football.
It was a grounding that came in handy the following year when, after a torrid run under Rafa Benitez, Ancelotti’s replacement, Gordon became one of the breakout heroes of Everton’s miraculous escape from relegation under Lampard. In a side decimated by injuries, his ability to burst from his own box to carry the ball into opposition territory and win pressure-relieving fouls was crucial. His goal against Manchester United, the winner in a home game that came with Everton’s fate in the balance, was a crowning moment for a local hero who, at 21, was becoming a talisman.
Lampard, who as a manager has played a guiding hand in the emergence of starlets such as Mason Mount, Reece James and Tammy Abraham, loved Gordon and ended the following summer desperately fighting to keep him.
Chelsea led the way and with the world watching, Gordon produced a stunning goal at Brentford to further whet appetites at Stamford Bridge. Everton staved off that interest but the season soon descended into chaos.
A relatively positive start gave way to a miserable week of three defeats, including two within days of each other at Bournemouth in the Carabao Cup then the Premier League, leaving Lampard under pressure. The Qatar World Cup offered respite but the return to domestic action was marred by a home defeat to Wolves and it was soon clear the Blues were facing another relegation battle.
As the club was engulfed in chaos on and off the pitch, Gordon left in acrimonious circumstances. His transfer request went down badly with the supporters who had backed him, while the club made their disappointment clear with a terse, 59-word statement that included no wishes of good luck for a player who had been with them since the age of 11.
That hurt Gordon, who believed he deserved credit for his efforts to help save the club from relegation the previous season.
Neither the transfer request nor his final act of consequence in an Everton shirt - a silly push to concede the free-kick from which James Ward-Prowse scored Southampton’s winner on a terrible January afternoon at Goodison - helped his reputation among supporters.
As is often the case, his departure was more complicated than it initially appeared though. The circumstances were, let’s be honest, a mess.
They were more complex than perhaps appeared at the time - the extent of Everton’s financial problems were yet to come to light (though questions had already moved to the front page of the ECHO) and this was a club that really needed the £40m Newcastle United initially spent on him, a point not acknowledged in their short exit statement.
But Gordon’s own antics since - from his celebrations weeks later as the Magpies condemned relegation-threatened Blues to a miserable Goodison Park defeat to his willingness to step up for a spot kick in front of a Gwladys Street crowd that had once been his biggest source of support - have done little to inspire the building of any bridges.
Maybe that is football, though it does not have to be - non-celebrations against former sides are often scorned but I suspect James Garner is still welcome back at Nottingham Forest despite his defining role in Everton’s win there in December, one that saw him refuse to celebrate the opening goal against his former club.
As a journalist, I am one step removed from the full-blooded emotions at play in every rivalry. The Blues dominate my life and I want nothing but the best for the club, I want nothing but the best for a fanbase that deserves more than the decades of frustration it has endured and the relegation fights of recent years. The best part of my job is not the behind-the-scenes insight I am privy to, or the privilege of watching matches from the press box. It is, and always has been, following these supporters around the country and the world and trying - trying - to do justice to their efforts and the performances they inspire in words.
That access also means I have seen Gordon in situations others have not. When he was at Everton, I watched from Washington DC to Sydney as he was one of the last to leave fan events, patiently ensuring every one who wanted his signature or a selfie could get it.
I was at Everton in the Community’s food pantry off Goodison Road when he arrived with seven trolleys-worth of food he had earlier picked out at the Asda in Bootle for the charity initiative, and then helped distribute it from the market stalls he had helped to supply.
After the humiliation to Adrian Heath’s Minnesota United under Lampard, when the lights in the stadium were turned off on me as I waited for an interview to justify my presence on the other side of the world, it was Gordon who chose to help me. He did not have to, it was the type of night you could be forgiven for wanting to hide from. But he did - and so through me, told supporters how he took accountability for a night that sent a fanbase into panic, coming so soon after what we all hoped had been a disastrous one-off survival fight. I have no doubt that he was proud to be where he was and he did care.
Because of the above I have pretty much winced at every development that has since unfolded in the Everton-Gordon psychodrama.
I would never attempt to tell a supporter - of any club - what to think, but any inclination I may have had to urge for a rethink has been made tougher and tougher with every game Gordon has played against the Blues since, plus his apparent courtship of a move to Liverpool. I am not doing that here.
I do, however, think some of the emotion can be removed from the wider picture here. Whatever supporters may or may not think of Gordon, his rise is testimony to Finch Farm and an academy that has repeatedly developed some of the brightest talents in the world.
The academy has suffered over recent years due to the financial crises faced by the club but even amid that pain there have still been highlights - Harrison Armstrong is an exciting prospect that I hope becomes front and centre of a future Everton side, preferably one that is regularly competing for silverware. I certainly think he has the talent.
The past few years have understandably been dominated by the rise of Lamine Yamal. He has, so far, achieved far more than Gordon but next season one of La Masia’s most recent superstars will be lining up in the same attack as a player who did his learning at Finch Farm. They could yet face each other in the World Cup final.
That is something Everton can be proud of. And even if that means separating the success from the emotion of the relationship with Gordon, it should be a source of pride. And from a purely pragmatic perspective, his rise has served another purpose for the Blues by bringing in valuable sums.
That £40m prevented Everton’s second points deduction from being far worse. The £3.5m windfall that followed his move to Barcelona this summer could end up being the money that supports the rise of another Finch Farm starlet.