“I’m not going back to this” – Anthony Gordon on Everton decision changing everything

Barcelona forward Anthony Gordon has detailed how one decision at Everton ended up changing everything, including his career trajectory.

The winger has been speaking about various aspects of his career following his big money move to Barcelona this summer.

He joined the Catalan giants in an €80m move from Newcastle United in the last transfer window – Barcelona’s biggest spend of the summer.

It’s the latest step up for the 25-year-old, who has spent the last few years steadily climbing the ranks after breaking through at Everton.

He is a product of the Toffees youth academy after joining them from Liverpool, going on to make 78 appearances – with seven goals and eight assists – before joining Newcastle in 2023.

Before his breakthrough at Goodison Park, there was a loan spell at Preston North End, comprising of 11 appearances and just 513 minutes. And that experience saw Gordon make a decision that would change everything.

“At this level, everyone has more or less the same amount of talent – except for Lamine, Pedri, and players like that,” he said, in a chat carried in today’s print edition of El Pais.

“The rest of us are pretty evenly matched. It’s mentality that separates the greats from the merely good. I’ve played with incredible players who never reached their full potential because they didn’t have the right mindset. To me, having a strong mind is better than having a lot of talent. Talent is very inconsistent.”

Big decisio changed everything

This lesson early on saw him change how he was doing things at Everton, which had an immediate impact.

“Around age 19, more or less,” he had the realisation.

“I was a very talented player, but my mentality wasn’t that strong or consistent. I was loaned to Preston from Everton and barely played. After that loan, I told myself: I’m not going back to this.

“I need to play in the Premier League; I can’t go back to the Championship. When I returned for preseason, I started reading every day, watching videos.

“From then on, I started paying close attention to personal development. I began to understand a lot of things.”

A big part of that personal development was reading books. He’s a particular fan of Winning and Relentless by Tim Grover. But he’s not spending his time reading fiction.

“Only personal development books,” he said when asked what he reads.

“I read to stimulate my brain, to learn something about life. To learn things, I don’t know. For fiction, I prefer movies.”

He also knows that he might have a battle on his hands to convince others to follow his ways.

“I’d like to (start a book club), but I haven’t actually tried,” he added.

“The guys are too young; they wouldn’t go for it. I know a footballer who reads is a rarity. But I feel like I have an old soul, you know? Like I belong to the past.

“I belong to another era. I think my personality fits better with the 90s. Nowadays, everyone is obsessed with social media; everything is materialistic, and romance barely exists. That’s not me; I prefer the past.”

Indeed, the winger thinks he’s perhaps designed for an era when footballers weren’t in the limelight as much, as he admits he’s generally a shy person, despite his persona on the pitch.

“People’s perception of me has always been very different from who I really am,” he admitted.

“They confuse the person with the footballer. As soon as I step onto the pitch, I’m a different person. But I need to be the best version of myself. I’m very aggressive, very intense; I want to win. Off the pitch, I’m calm. Quiet.”