The England forward refused to by into talk that he was playing poorly before four goal blast in Baku
Anthony Gordon
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Anthony Gordon reckons that the mood in the Newcastle United dressing room was severely dented after a recent five-game winless run that piled pressure on head coach Eddie Howe.
That sorry sequence culminated in Howe and the team being booed off after a 3-2 defeat at St James' Park to Brentford. And it sparked a team meeting without Howe being present as Toon stars and the leadership group to find solutions.
Since then, Newcastle have not looked back with wins over Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa in the FA Cup and Qarabag in the Champions League play-off. It's been a stunning turnaround that has lifted the spirits of everyone connected to the club.
Speaking on the mood that prompted fan unrest from the Gallowgate End, Gordon warned that players can't afford to get too high or too low. He reflected: "It was incredible. With what we've been through in the last couple of weeks, everybody had given up on us, it makes our lives really hard. We have shown great character with three great away performances and three big wins.
"The mood is really good in the dressing room. But also to go the other way, when people are down on you when you don't do well, they get really high on you and go the other way - and it's up to us to stay in the middle and stay level.
"Football changes really quickly so we don't need to be to confident which is working hard for each other."
Gordon himself got dragged into some negativity during the poor run after failing to find the net consistently enough. However, after a return to a central striking role saw him notch at Anfield against Liverpool, he then hit back to the critics with four goals in Azerbaijan this week in the 6-1 win in Baku.
He said: "I am always confident and always back myself. I love playing No 9. I have said that a lot.
"The perspective of me playing there early was that it wasn't working. I didn't believe that was really true. I think I was playing really well, I just wasn't getting the goals. As a striker, that's important. Thankfully, recently I have been playing well and getting the goals. I just like playing there."
The length between Newcastle being booed off on Tyneside to roared over to the away end in Qarabag was just 11 days as the players responded in style to their run of poor form. A lot of that was down to the senior players in the dressing room coming together and Gordon counts himself as a 'leader' among the Newcastle squad. He may just be 24 still but he has seen a lot as a footballer since breaking onto the scene with Everton.
"It happens so fast (11 days)," he added. "It's just football and I have been around it long enough to understand it. I don't really get too high or low any more. I am old enough now. I have been through a lot, seen a lot, it is up to me as a leader to make the team feel the same way."
"Everybody is really happy at the moment. But football is so emotional. You shouldn't get too high or low at one time.
"Now we are in a good place we should not get too high or too confident because the games are coming thick and fast. If we do, we will be back in the place we were. We have to keep the same mentality and focus and that will lead us to get where we want to go to."
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