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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Sport
Kadeem Simmonds

'What he does' - Frank Lampard backed to repeat Mason Mount trick with Anthony Gordon at Everton

Former Everton winger Pat Nevin believes Anthony Gordan can excel under Frank Lampard at Everton, like Mason Mount did at Chelsea.

Gordon was one of a few Toffees player to stand out last season on the pitch as the club managed to avoid relegation to the Championship. The England Under-21 international made 35 appearances in the Premier League last season.

His development at the back end of the season under the watchful eye of Lampard has seen many look at the role the ex-Chelsea boss played in the development of Mount. Lampard brought him in on loan while in charge at Derby County and then made him a focal point of his Chelsea side.

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Mount has gone on to become an England regular ever since getting his break under Lampard and Nevin can see Gordon's game improving further more if he listens to Chelsea's all-time leading scorer, who specialised in arriving late in the box and scoring crucial goals.

Anthony Gordon had a great season and created expectation over what he can achieve,” Nevin told evertonfc.com. “The next factor to consider is, how can he sustain those performances and improve?

“He must keep doing what he is good at, but also adapt, and that is what you need to learn quickly. I wasn’t a dribbler early on, I’d never played on the wing before I went to Chelsea. Then I had to adapt. You do specific things for the next two or three years and people think: ‘That is what he does’.

“So you have to adapt again, find different positions, use your head in different ways. If it means drawing players away, holding the ball and developing space elsewhere, you have to learn that part of the game, too. It is football intelligence. Anthony has a good amount of football intelligence and he must let that grow.

“There are not many in the game who had better spatial awareness arriving in the box than Frank Lampard. He worked really well with Mason Mount, did great things with him – adapted and changed him as a player, without losing his strengths. And Mason is now an England international and a core player in the Chelsea team. That was built from the time at Derby County.

"Anthony won’t think he’s there and the finished article. Even if you are brilliant, there is more to learn. I am reading Johan Cruyff’s book and at 21, 22, he was still learning. If Johan Cruyff was still learning at 21, 22 and open about it, we all have to be.”

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