Anthony Gordon

[andycap]

Should of scored a hat trick today his finishing can be quite poor at times aswell, 

But he works his arse off. 

[alexf]

Needs a goal for confidence it feels.

His all round play is still good and off the ball he works really hard, which is what keeps Barnes out the team. But his finishing this season has been so wasteful. Looked alot more composed and clinical last season.

[Kanj]

He was ruthless last season. Played with a fuck off load of confidence too. 

[Conjo]

He will be a 15 goal pr season player if he ever learns how to head a ball. He's had so many good chances on the head since he came here, yet not one single headed goal.

[Zero]

3 hours ago, Conjo said:

He will be a 15 goal pr season player if he ever learns how to head a ball. He's had so many good chances on the head since he came here, yet not one single headed goal.

agree, but that header yesterday should be a foul. Gordon was pushed from behind.

[Lush Vlad]

I don’t think much has changed with his finishing since last season. He isn’t composed at all and doesn’t strike a ball particularly well. Maybe he just got the rub of the green a bit more and was kind of similar to Almiron during his purple patch.
 

I know he’s young and he was playing for a crap Everton side. But he’s never seemed to score many other than last season I don’t think? 
 

Makes up for it in other ways, of course. His pace kills teams, his workrate is off the charts and infectious. He has also got a lot better at varying his game. He’s much better back to goal than he was and throws the odd trick in or drop of a shoulder to creat space for himself.
 

He looks really dangerous when he drifts, as well. When he pops up with a bit of space in central areas you can see the defenders he’s up against visibly shit themselves (not literally). 

[NSG]

If you could merge his all round play with Barnes’ finishing you’d genuinely have one of the best wingers in world football  

[Smal]

he should be scoring a lot more goals at the back post, especially when Murphy’s in the team. It’s about timing of runs more than finishing half the time.

 

Been really disappointed by his output this season tbh, but thought he played well overall yesterday at least.

[Colos Short and Curlies]

7 hours ago, alexf said:

Needs a goal for confidence it feels.

His all round play is still good and off the ball he works really hard, which is what keeps Barnes out the team. But his finishing this season has been so wasteful. Looked alot more composed and clinical last season.

could see why Howe put him upfront when Isak went off, a couple of scrappy goals will do him the world of good.

 

Would still rather see Barnes one on for him and not Murphy though

[Bondedcrown]

7 hours ago, Conjo said:

He will be a 15 goal pr season player if he ever learns how to head a ball. He's had so many good chances on the head since he came here, yet not one single headed goal.

He was pushed as he went for the header  he had?

 

[Holloway]

37 minutes ago, Bondedcrown said:

He was pushed as he went for the header  he had?

 

bit of a nudge, no foul imo. Should have buried the header, he had loads to aim at

[Bondedcrown]

16 minutes ago, Holloway said:

bit of a nudge, no foul imo. Should have buried the header, he had loads to aim at

Never mentioned a foul? But it was enought to change his position slightly! Doesn't take much when you are in ther air!

[CPL]

1 minute ago, Bondedcrown said:

Never mentioned a foul? But it was enought to change his position slightly! Doesn't take much when you are in ther air!

Felt if he milked it a bit like Liverpool players normally do, he would have won a penalty.

 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by CPL

[Checko]

Since the 21/22 season he's scored roughly what you'd expect from his xG every year, his finishing's fine. He's a bit below this year but that's just natural variance. At some point he'll grab a few and all will be well.

 

With the header, yeah probably should have scored, but really the issue there was that because Murphy had lobbed it up to keep it in play it was dropping fast. Combined that with running onto it at high speed with a defender by him & you only need to be the slightest fraction out. It just dropped a tiny bit too much and he got over the top of it. Think Isak's one on one chip straight to the keeper was worse tbh.

 

Also, watching the highlights, his pass to put Barnes through at the end was class.

[Rod]

2 minutes ago, Checko said:

Since the 21/22 season he's scored roughly what you'd expect from his xG every year, his finishing's fine. He's a bit below this year but that's just natural variance. At some point he'll grab a few and all will be well.

 

With the header, yeah probably should have scored, but really the issue there was that because Murphy had lobbed it up to keep it in play it was dropping fast. Combined that with running onto it at high speed with a defender by him & you only need to be the slightest fraction out. It just dropped a tiny bit too much and he got over the top of it. Think Isak's one on one chip straight to the keeper was worse tbh.

 

Also, watching the highlights, his pass to put Barnes through at the end was class.

His finishing is definitely not fine.

[Holloway]

22 minutes ago, Bondedcrown said:

Never mentioned a foul? But it was enought to change his position slightly! Doesn't take much when you are in ther air!

It could be argued the defender did just enough to put him off but he has to score, his heading is weak in general 

[jackflap]

With the exception of Barnes the entire teams finishing has been rubbish this season and even Barnes has fluffed a fair few 1v1s, it's been more the instinctive finishes he's been getting. Maybe there's something more going on.

 

Gordons work rate is off the charts though, he has at least one press every game that you'd never see another player make. You notice him adding little tricks to his game as well. He developed a stepover at some point last season to good effect and now when he receives the ball deep with his back to goal he's throwing in a little feint to help him get away from defenders.

 

I don't think he reads the field that well though, particularly on a counter attack. Feels like he makes up his mind early and doesn't let things develop. When Bruno fired the volleyed wonder pass to him yesterday was a case in point. Think he'd Willock flying past him on the outside and it should've resulted in a tap in if he gave it but it was like he'd already decided he was going to cut in and shoot.

[alexf]

with his headers, like a lot of players, he seems to close his eyes and dip his head at the last second. 

[Smal]

2 hours ago, Checko said:

He's a bit below this year but that's just natural variance.

 

think this is understating it pretty heavily to be honest. In the league this season he has 0.21 goals per 90 played from an xG of 0.37 per 90 (or 3 goals from 5.3xG) which is really quite bad.

 

I'm sure he'll be working on it but obviously need to improve massively. 

[Geordie Ahmed]

24 minutes ago, alexf said:

with his headers, like a lot of players, he seems to close his eyes and dip his head at the last second. 

 

On the replay I noticed this too, took his eye off it at the last moment

 

Overall he's class for us and causes so much problems to the opposition, do hope he can improve his finishing, it's never going to be at an elite level but he should be able to improve it with regular practice 

[Checko]

3 hours ago, Smal said:

 

think this is understating it pretty heavily to be honest. In the league this season he has 0.21 goals per 90 played from an xG of 0.37 per 90 (or 3 goals from 5.3xG) which is really quite bad.

 

I'm sure he'll be working on it but obviously need to improve massively. 

Yeah but over a short period of time. Personally I'm not worried.

 

Take Isak for instance: in 2021/22 he scored 6 goals in the season from 9.8 xG. Should have had an extra 4 goals that year. He'd scored 17 league goals the year before (16.8 xG), 9 from 7.3 xg the year before that and 13 from 11.7xG the year before that. Every other year before and after he's generally scored slightly more then his xg. Sometimes you just have a year, or run of games where things don't go as well as normal.

 

The pattern I see with Gordon over the last few years is that he's scored pretty consistently about much as many goals as expected. Goals often come in clusters, he'll probably score a few in a couple of games at some point and be back to baseline. So yeah, of course he's not been clinical so far this year, but I'm not worried about his finishing over the long-term, I think it's fine.