Every once in awhile there is a young player who rises through the ranks of youth football at Everton football club and is hailed as a future star. One such star who might be getting his chance to prove he was worth the hype is Anthony Gordon. The 20 year old scouser recorded his first start since project restart, last weekend at Old Trafford. Gordon wasn’t the greatest while tracking back as cover for Lucas Digne, but going forward the young winger was confident on the ball, pinged a few few solid crosses, and even beat Aaron Wan-Bissaka one on one a few times. For Everton fans it was nice to see Gordon getting a start in a big match against in a hostile environment; while also not looking like he belonged on the pitch.
The big question with Gordon is, will he be given ample opportunity to prove that he is the young star he was made out to be? Gordon only has 30 total appearances for Everton and only 7 of those appearances have been starts. This doesn’t mean that Gordon will never get his chance to make an impact at Everton, but if he wants to break through he will need more consistent playing time. Luckily for Everton and Gordon alike, he’s only just turned 20 years old this season, still plenty of time to make good on his talent. With all of that said however, Gordon still has a lot of work to do in his game. He’s got plenty of pace, but needs to get on the Dominic Calvert-Lewin lifting program to put on some more muscle if he wants to be competitive in the Premier League. His biggest weak point is his end product. In that it is totally non existent to this point in his senior career. in 41 apperances at both Preston, and Everton, Gordon has one assist and Zero goals. To make it as a winger in the Premier League you have to be able to either assist more goals, or score more goals, or ideally both. Gordon hasn’t shown that ability yet, and that needs to come sooner rather than later.
Gordon did go out on loan last January with Preston North End, but didn’t make much of an impact. 11 appearances and only 4 starts. He had a solid start to his loan, but a dip in form took him out of the starting line up and never was able to get his place. Everton have a long history of wasting young talent at their u23 level. Waiting too long to get players out on loan to get first team chances. It might be good to look at getting Gordon another loan, where he can start week in and week out. On the other hand with how short handed Everton are at the moment, especially at the winger positions there is a chance Gordon could have a run of games with the Everton first team.
One thing that no Everton supporter should be doing is writing off one of their own. This is a young man who made his Everton debut at 17 years old. The club believes that he can be a key player for them in the not so distant future. Young players like Anthony Gordon are never a sure thing when it comes to cutting in the Premier league and every path is a little bit different. Everton need to do good by him and do everything in their power to make him a great player at Everton.
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