Anthony Gordon was trying to gather his composure, an hour after a day of huge importance. His deflected goal had given Everton a lifeline in their battle to beat relegation and the enormity of what had happened against Manchester United was sinking in.
For someone who has been a part of the club since the age of 11, whose investment in it is as emotional as any of those on the baying Gwladys Street, you might have expected a smile as wide as the Mersey, elation that could not be controlled. Not a bit of it. The young man who stood in front of us cut a different figure.
‘I live and breathe it — unfortunately,’ Gordon said last April. ‘It affects my life daily. I cannot sleep after games like that, especially when I feel I could have done a bit better in some moments in that game. Unfortunately, it does affect me daily.
Anthony Gordon has told Everton he has no intention of returning to his boyhood club
‘I couldn’t sleep and stuff, but we recovered and it is part of the life of being a footballer.’
Gordon was reflecting on a defeat at Burnley three days earlier. He was asked about why he had used the word unfortunately twice and why there was anything wrong about living and breathing it all. It was important for fans to know, surely, that he was experiencing all they were and more?
‘Yes, but you don’t know how I feel day to day,’ he replied. ‘I have family members and friends and I see people day to day who love Everton. So I feel it a bit more, or just as much as everyone else, because I am living and breathing it and everywhere I go people are talking to me about it.’
Gordon has not started a game for the Toffees since the mid-season World Cup break
Video on social media site TikTok showed supporters screaming ‘f***ing d***head’ at Gordon
This young man knows his city and he knows his club. He knows the kind of behaviour that angers fans and he has been around the first-team environment long enough to understand the way to act and how you earn respect.
So it is bewildering, then, that he has been put into a position by whoever is advising him where he has come across as not giving any thought to the bigger picture of how he will be perceived by Evertonians and those with whom he shares a dressing room.
As always, these situations are complex and it shouldn’t be underestimated how much an incident after the Southampton game earlier this month, when he was chased down a street by morons yelling ‘****ing…