It’s going to be an intriguing summer at Liverpool. While the focus now is rightly on Jurgen Klopp’s final week as the club’s manager, Arne Slot will soon be named as the legendary German’s replacement.
And Slot will arrive at Anfield to find a top off-the-field team already in place. Put together by the returning Michael Edwards, the new Liverpool boss will have no shortage of support when it comes to the transfer market.
The Reds will finish the Premier League campaign in third and with one trophy – the Carabao Cup – to their name. But after at one stage this season looking capable of winning all four honours available to them, it is clear that the squad rebuilding work started by Klopp and Jorg Schmadtke last summer is not finished yet.
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Whether Slot and Co will be looking for attackers once the transfer window re-opens remains to be seen. While some have misfired of late, the quintet of Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez, Diogo Jota and Cody Gakpo remains a fearsome preposition. But with uncertainly over the long-term future of Salah, who has a year remaining on the contract that made him the highest-paid player in the club’s history, and with Diaz seemingly attracting interest from elsewhere, the Reds are beginning to be linked with forward players in the transfer gossip columns.
The latest being none other than former Everton winger Anthony Gordon. The Daily Star report Liverpool are interested in signing the 23-year-old, who has enjoyed a superb first full season at Newcastle United.
Gordon left Everton, the club where he had risen through the ranks, in acrimonious circumstances in January 2023. After forcing through his £40m move to Newcastle, he scored just once – on the final day of the 2022-23 campaign – in the first four months at his new club. But he has kicked on this season, scoring 11 goals in 47 appearances and forcing his way into the full England squad. And the Daily Star claim “that consistent excellence on the wing for Eddie Howe’s outfit has caught the attention of Liverpool’s scouting unit as they draw up a list of potential targets for the post-Jurgen Klopp era”.
The report goes on to say “it would take an offer of close to £100m from the Reds to seriously test Newcastle’s resolve to keep hold of the influential playmaker”, who was recently named their player of the season. Whether Liverpool would sanction a club-record bid for Gordon is one thing, and regardless, would the player himself want to play for Everton’s biggest rivals?
Well, on that point, perhaps so. While he came through the Blues’ academy and was, initially at least, adored by supporters, the way his time at the club ended left a bad taste in the mouths of Evertonians. And, in a recent exclusive interview with Gary Neville on The Overlap, he named one of the Reds’ greatest players as his boyhood idol, which of course, no self-respecting Everton supporter would ever likely do.
“Steven Gerrard was my football hero growing up,” Gordon said. “Coming from Liverpool, he was like a God in Liverpool, and he was an unbelievable player.”
And if that wasn’t enough, he also named a current Reds great as an inspiration. “My confidence comes from my preparation. I don’t know where it comes from, I wouldn’t say anyone around me is anything like that. I just love learning stuff, and throughout my years growing up, I’ve taken a liking to learning about psychology,” said Gordon, who was on Liverpool’s books as a kid before signing for Everton.
“There may be people who do the same thing as me, there may be loads who just haven’t spoken about it. Some footballers like to think less, just turn up and play and trust their instincts. I just love the mindset of getting myself in that place before I’m already there.
“I saw Mo Salah talk about it – that’s where I took even more interest, because I see him as an absolute machine and a winner. People like that, you’re not going to go too far wrong following what they do.”
So it does appear that Gordon was a Red growing up. It’s still some leap to suggest he would leave Newcastle – who according to the Daily Star, “are expected to off-load at least one, possibly two, leading players in the close season in order to stay the right side of Financial Fair Play rules” – this summer or that Liverpool would be prepared to pay the money it would take to tempt him from Tyneside.
But with so many things changing at Anfield, perhaps it cannot be ruled out completely.
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