Anthony Gordon will link up with his Newcastle United team-mates later this summer as the new Under-21 European Championship Player of the Tournament. The Magpies forward, 22, played a starring role for the Young Lions in Georgia and Romania as they lifted the coveted trophy on Sunday evening.
Gordon began to find his feet for Newcastle at the back end of last season after a shaky start to life on Tyneside. The youngster's tumultuous Everton exit will have no doubt played a part, with the Toffees oddly snubbing him in a congratulatory tweet to their ex-players after England's win.
Eddie Howe persuaded Newcastle's top brass to spend big on Gordon in January, believing the attacker has the correct character for his St James' Park dressing room - and the player's comments after the 1-0 win over Spain this weekend will no doubt reaffirm that, with Gordon humbly putting praise on his team-mates and admitting egos were left at the door before the tournament.
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“I’m delighted and over the moon,” said Gordon. “I feel as though I’ve had a good tournament and I don’t want give the cliché because it’s the truth – me winning the [player of the tournament] trophy was down to my teammates and the staff.
“Lee and everyone involved have been really good with me throughout. The team is a really unselfish group and there could’ve been six or seven players who won it. That’s testament to how together we’ve been throughout the tournament.
“It was a very intense game, but we knew that coming into. Spain are a top team and they’re known for pushing players through their pathway and they have a particular style of play which is difficult to play against. So we knew we’d have to dig in at times and we did that really well ,and in tournaments sometimes you need a bit of luck and it came our way.
“I felt coming into the tournament, we had so much individual ability but it’s how you structure that and how we as individuals can put our egos aside and come together as one and that was the main part.
“Our chemistry off the pitch was second-to-none, I can’t tell you how good it was and I feel like the group in general was together in one goal and that was what we did.”
