Anthony Gordon makes bold ‘IQ’ claim as he compares Newcastle and Barcelona
Anthony Gordon has been at Barcelona for a matter of months and already seems rather pleased with how the world is finally catching up with his footballing intelligence.
Speaking to ITV Football, the former Newcastle winger suggested his quality was never properly appreciated in England, where people apparently couldn’t see beyond his pace and aggression.
It’s quite a speech from someone who, earlier this year, was coming off more than 12 months without a Premier League goal in open play.
Gordon feels his ‘IQ’ went unnoticed
Explaining how perceptions of him have changed, Gordon said:
“I think I've become a different player in a lot of people's eyes because I always felt in England people respected me because I was fast and I pressed, but they never actually respected the quality and IQ that I play with. Only the players I play with seem to ever notice that.
“People just see me as really quick and really aggressive. Whereas in Spain, I think that they really appreciate my IQ quality because in Barcelona, if you're not technical, if you're not smart, you're going to stand out like a sore thumb.”
And Newcastle’s style, apparently, wasn’t giving those qualities enough room to shine:
“I played for Newcastle, who were a really intense running team, so the attributes of running and aggression were always on show. Now I play a whole opposite style of football, where my other qualities can show.
“I felt like I had more than what people thought of me and I wanted to show that on the world's biggest stage, so going abroad was very important for me.”
Where was all this intelligence at Newcastle?
There’s confidence, and then there’s talking as though English football has spent years failing to understand your genius.
Gordon went more than a year without a league goal in open play before scoring at Liverpool in January. His final Premier League season with us produced six goals, three of them penalties, and just two assists.
Where was this incredible football IQ during those long stretches when he was producing so little?
It’s a bit rich to leave and suggest the problem was everyone else’s inability to appreciate you. If you’re going to talk this much about your quality, people are entitled to ask why it so often failed to translate into anything useful on the pitch.
He’d probably point to his ten Champions League goals as proof he can perform on the “world’s biggest stage”, while leaving out that six came against relative minnows: four against Qarabag and two penalties against Union Saint-Gilloise. Hardly a season spent tearing Europe’s best defences apart.
He’s got the club he wanted and the platform he wanted. He could spend a little less time explaining how good he is and a little more time putting together the sustained performances to back it up.
