Newcastle were left scrambling to raise funds at the end of June as they attempted to comply with Profit and Sustainability rules and ended up cashing in on homegrown talent Elliot Anderson and talented forward Yankuba Minteh, both of whom have remained in the Premier League.
Article continues below
Gordon was one individual the Magpies also considered offloading to help balance their books, offering the England international to Liverpool. The Reds are admirers of the 23-year-old, though could not precede with a deal after Newcastle's demand for Jarell Quansah to head in the opposite direction as part of a deal. It later emerged Joe Gomez was put forward as a swap option, though Newcastle pulled the plug on this opportunity.
With one week still to go in the transfer market, Liverpool could yet revive their interest in the ex-Everton man and further test the Magpies' resolve. Offering his view on how the summer of speculation has affected his winger, Howe said: “I’ve seen Anthony come back in a good place.
"Especially this past week, he had a really short training period before that first game. We put him in as he’s a difference maker, it takes the younger players less time to get up to speed but I think this week he has looked back to his best.
Asked if Gordon had a difficult summer, Howe added: “I don’t know. I think that there’s two ways to look at that. The Euros will have been an incredible experience for him. The first time that he will have been with England for any length of time and I’m sure he’ll have learned, seen and experienced a lot from that.
"Sometimes, we all have this vision of the fairytale ending, you go in and help your country win the tournament, but life is rarely like that. Anthony will have seen a lot and hopefully use that for next time that he’s involved.”
Aside from Gordon, Alexander Isak and Bruno Guimaraes are two other star performers who are wanted by other English top-flight clubs and Newcastle face a fight on their hands to keep the in-demand trio. Aware that bids could still arrive for any of the three players, Howe admitted: “I have been in the game too long to make those statements. What I will say is from my part and the club’s part we will do everything we can to keep our best players but I am not a fortune teller.
"As managers, we learn to live with it in this world because we have to. But it's not ideal, there is a lot going on. Nowadays, if you put every player into your phone they have probably been linked to other clubs and 99 per cent of it is nonsense.
“You can't change the player being affected by what they read and what he takes in. And suddenly a whole thought process goes away from what he needs to focus on which is the next training session and the next game. So, the better the player can block it the better you will be as a team but it is certainly unsettling depending on how much noise there is around that player."
0 Comments