If the price is £45 million, means Everton have made over £11m a goal. If it goes up to £50m, it is £12.5m per strike. Buying virtually any 21-year-old for a hefty fee involves paying for potential but, should he join Chelsea, Anthony Gordon may represent an extreme case.
Certainly in terms of the most valuable of all attributes: the capacity to put the ball in the net. The squabble for the winger’s services pits Frank Lampard against his former club. Gordon has admirers at Goodison Park at Stamford Bridge alike, but thus far he has been more crowd-pleaser than match-winner. He had six shots in the draw against Nottingham Forest on Saturday but the Everton forward to equalise was Demarai Gray, and few seem likely to pay £50m for him this window. Gordon, meanwhile, remains rooted on four goals in his career.
There are twin questions, of how good he is and how good he could be. Gordon has a symbolic value at Everton as a local. He was a talismanic presence in a relegation struggle, rousing the fans with relentless running and direct dribbling.
But the counter-argument is that he has only had two-thirds of a fine season so far and that Chelsea, outscored by Manchester City and Liverpool last season and lacking a clinical finisher, need a scorer more than a runner; after all, Timo Werner excelled at sprinting, just not at scoring. Thomas Tuchel has targeted one winger with a prolific touch this summer, but it was Raheem Sterling.
“Anthony has a lot of strings to his bow and the goalscoring one will come,” argued Lampard. “Some of it is just pure development. He is a young player who gave us so much last year in his output in a general sense. He wants to work on his finishing.”
Perhaps he needs to. Four of Saturday’s six efforts were on target and Dean Henderson was defiant. Yet none were special saves and a concern is that Gordon’s shots rarely require heroics. He had an expected goals score of 0.66 against Forest and no goals. When Saturday ended, only Aleksandar Mitrovic had more attempts in the Premier League this season than his 10, but none have gone in.
“Sometimes it takes time to get that in your game,” Lampard said. Many a winger emerges as a quick, skilful player who offers excitement. Sterling is an example of one who was not potent at Gordon’s age but has effected a transformation, exchanging entertainment for efficiency. “For some of the greatest players to expect them to be plundering goals at 21 or 22 is not always the norm,” noted Lampard. “There is the occasional exception, No. 9s like [Erling] Haaland, but it is their thing.”
It hasn’t been Gordon’s. An examination of his four goals lends a still less flattering look. He knew little about his strike against Leeds, when he inadvertently got the final touch to Richarlison’s shot. His winner against Manchester United went in off Harry Maguire, one of his brace against Brighton via Adam Lallana. He has had 98 shots in his senior career and only one has gone in without some kind of deflection.
He is 21. By way of comparison, when Christian Pulisic made his Chelsea bow, just before his 21st birthday and after a £58m move, he had 19 career club goals and 13 more for his country.
Two decades ago, a young midfielder had 16 goals to his name when he turned 21. He ended his career with 303 for clubs and country. He is Lampard. If he was not seeking comparisons with himself, Lampard’s capacity to improve himself makes him a role model, and not just for Gordon.
“I am not sitting here saying that at 20 years of age I was a goal machine,” he said. “I wasn’t feeling as confident to rack up big numbers until I was in my low to mid-twenties, 23, 24 and onwards.” Indeed, Lampard had six consecutive seasons when he scored five, six or seven league goals. Then came the jump into double figures for 10 years in a row.
“It is an absolute process and players absolutely can improve on it by working time and time again, recreating situations and positions to get better at it,” Lampard argued. Practice made perfect for him. “That goes for every attacking player at every club in world football. I always found working during the week made me lucky at the weekends and it also made me better.”
Lampard was the exception to the rule in many respects. He was also a far cleaner striker of a ball than Gordon is, but he combined that with a striker’s mentality. Yet it took him time to reach his peak.
“At 20 years of age I wouldn’t have got into a modern-day Chelsea team with the way I was playing,” he said.
Perhaps there was a warning there, that the Liverpudlian would be better off remaining at his hometown club: at 21, it is hard to see Gordon displacing Kai Havertz, Mason Mount or Sterling.
And if there is an irony that the major criticism levelled at Lampard’s two proteges, Mount and Gordon, is that neither scores enough goals, Chelsea’s pursuit of the Evertonian suggests they may be paying a supersized fee for a forward who is neither the finished article nor the finisher.
