DOMINIC KING: Anthony Gordon knows his city and his club, so his no-show at Everton is bewildering

Anthony Gordon was trying to regain his composure, an hour after a day of great importance. His goal deflected from him had given Everton a lifeline in their battle to beat relegation and the enormity of what had happened against Manchester United was sinking in.

For someone who has been a part of the club since the age of 11, whose investment in it is as soulful as any of those howling Gwladys Street, you might have expected a grin as wide as the Mersey, glee that couldn’t be second-guessed. Not a bit of that. The young man in front of us had a different figure.

“I live it and I breathe it, unfortunately,” Gordon said last April. ‘It affects my life every day. I can’t sleep after games like that, especially when I feel like I could have done a little better at some points in that game. Unfortunately, it affects me on a daily basis.

I couldn’t sleep and stuff, but we recovered and it’s part of the life of being a footballer.

Gordon was reflecting on a defeat at Burnley three days earlier. He was asked why he had used the word unfortunately twice and why there was something wrong with living and breathing all that. Was it important for the fans to know, surely, that he was experiencing everything they were and more?

‘Yes, but you don’t know how I feel from day to day,’ he replied. I have family and friends and I see people every day who love Everton. So I feel it a little bit more, or as much as everyone else, because I live it and I breathe it and everywhere I go, people talk to me about it.’

This young man knows his city and knows his club. He knows the kind of behavior that angers fans and has been around the first-team environment long enough to understand how to act and how to earn respect.

So it’s baffling that whoever is advising him on what he’s found has put him in a position where he doesn’t think about the big picture of how he’ll be perceived by Evertonians and those with whom he shares a bandage. room.

As always, these situations are complex and one should not underestimate the incident after the Southampton game earlier this month, when some morons chased him down the street while yelling “fucking head” while filming. everything, he has puzzled him.

Frank Lampard certainly spoke to Gordon in the days following the altercation, but it’s unclear who else spoke to him. If that episode made him question whether he wanted to be at Everton full-time, he might understand the way he was thinking.

Things are always different for the local lads who play for Everton and Liverpool. You’re not your own person, it’s almost like they see you as property of the city and the ones who are the focal points when things go wrong.

But it also works the other way around. Be successful as a Scouser Blue or Red and the adulation will be enormous, the goodwill relentless. Gordon was feted by the Evertonians last year for standing up and delivering when his team needed him.

Why, then, has it come to this? She hasn’t shown up for training for three days and she isn’t expected today either. It will be extraordinary if he wears the blue jersey again and most likely joins Newcastle, whose first move was made last week at a meeting in London.

Everton need to sell, but Gordon’s petulance in refusing to show up for training is also hurting them. If he no longer wants to be at Goodison Park, there were ways and means to achieve a goal that would suit everyone.

His form has sunk, and a change of scenery, perhaps, will help. Instead, you’ve found yourself in the middle of a mess, and while the result will eventually be a color change, it will come at a cost. He spoke nine months ago about the ‘life of being a footballer’: life could have gone on without bridges being burned and reputations damaged.