Everton Should Consider Anthony Gordon Sale If Chelsea Raise Transfer Bid

Everton attacker Anthony Gordon is once again attracting interest from Premier League sides, with free-spending Chelsea the latest to tempt the Merseyside club into selling the 21-year-old.

Chelsea have sounded out a transfer fee of around $48 million (£40 million) for Gordon but Everton will hold out for a better deal, should they sell at all.

The BBC reported on Monday morning that Gordon “is now attracting serious interest from other clubs,” suggesting Chelsea are not the only ones monitoring the situation.

Newcastle United are thought to have made a bid of around $40 million for Gordon earlier in the transfer window, and it’s evident that the young Englishman’s performances last season caught the eye despite him playing in a side battling against relegation.

Even though Everton will want to hang onto a player who has come through their youth ranks and become popular with the fans thanks to his application last season, a point may have been reached where the transfer fee is more valuable to them at this moment in time than the player.

Though Gordon has been a bright spark during murky times at the club, much of his value is in his potential. He has not yet shown the production in the attacking third of the field that would take his game to the next level, or enough to earn a senior England cap.

His usefulness for Everton lies mostly in his versatility, work rate, and reliability. He doesn’t yet look like a player who will create and score goals at a rate to help the team put last season’s woes behind them.

With last season’s top scorer Richarlison sold to Tottenham Hotspur in the summer, and Dominic Calvert-Lewin out injured, it is difficult to see where the goals will come from in this Everton team. Their only goal so far this season is an own goal scored by former player Lucas Digne in a 2-1 defeat at Aston Villa.

Using any fee received for Gordon to remedy this problem may be the wisest move for Everton at this moment in time, especially as they have other players of Gordon’s ilk in Demarai Gray, Dwight McNeil, and Alex Iwobi who can play in wide attacking positions.

It will be a test of the club’s relatively new recruitment setup and director of football Kevin Thelwell, but a competent recruitment team should be able to do plenty with $50-60 million.

Chelsea will be bidding above Gordon’s current value because they see he has the potential to improve his output in a more settled system with higher quality players, coached by one of the highest-rated managers in Europe, Thomas Tuchel.

If Chelsea nudge their bid towards or over the $60 million mark, it will be seen as a gamble. But a player so versatile who can play across the front line, or maybe even as a wing-back in Tuchel’s system, would still be valuable as an English homegrown player, even if he doesn’t improve his end product.

If Gordon does fulfil the potential Chelsea see in him, he could be worth more than the fee paid (depending on the state of the transfer market in the coming years).

There will be some emotional attachment to the player at Everton, and understandably so. Local youth products who have a natural affinity with the fans are relatively rare.

Gordon spent the 2020/21 season on loan at Championship side Preston North End. Though he impressed in bursts, he failed to score or register an assist during his 11 appearances for the club in the second tier. You wouldn’t have guessed that just over a season later a Champions League side would be considering a $60 million bid for his services. It’s a massive bonus for Everton that his value has risen so much.

If Everton had been more competent in their squad building Gordon may not have been relied upon as much last season, and may even have been loaned out again, but circumstances meant regular appearances in the Premier League, which were useful for his development.

It helped that he was one of Everton’s more consistent, reliable, quick and hard-working players during the 2021/22 season, as many around him struggled. His energy combined with growing talent made him one of the few players to come out at the end of the campaign with any credit.

Regardless of the circumstances in which it arose, a young English player making such a step up from potential Premier League player to Premier League regular was always going to catch the eye of clubs higher up the table.

Chelsea have wasted no time rebuilding their squad under new American owner Todd Boehly, and so far have secured deals for their main transfer targets this summer. Raheem Sterling was signed for $60 million from Manchester City and is an English player at the opposite end of the scale to Gordon, with his potential mostly fulfilled.

If Chelsea offer a similar fee for Gordon to that which they paid for Sterling, there’s a strong argument to be made for Everton taking the money.