Anthony Gordon summed up the Premier League right now in a way that cut through the noise. Asked, on the eve of Newcastle’s clash with PSG, to compare the PL with the Champions League, he didn’t hedge: “I think in the Champions League teams are much more open, they all try and play. It’s less transitional. I think, in the Premier League, it’s become more physical than I’ve ever known it to be."

Before a ball was kicked at the Parc des Princes, the equation was brutally simple for Newcastle United. Win in Paris and progression to the Champions League last 16 would be secured automatically. No February playoff.

There was a weary honesty to Eddie Howe’s words that cut through the January noise. No coy hints, no transfer-speak hedging, no illusion of late-window opportunity. Just a manager laying out reality as he sees it, and perhaps as the club has presented it to him.

In some sports the venue advantage shouts at you. Cricket is the prime example. Surfaces shape everything, and they do so in ways that produce distinct player types and tactical identities. Football doesn’t offer that kaleidoscope of formal surface variation and yet, home still matters. A lot.

There was a moment, not so long ago, when Anthony Gordon felt like a perfect distillation of Newcastle United’s new era. Young, aggressive, emotionally charged and visibly desperate to prove a point, he looked like a footballer who would either thrive spectacularly or burn out just as publicly. For a while, it seemed clear which way it was going.

There is a quiet realisation spreading across elite recruitment departments that the race for elite talent no longer begins in Europe. It begins earlier, further south, and with far more competition. South America has become a proving ground not only for raw flair, but for players tactically schooled, physically conditioned and psychologically hardened much earlier than in previous generations. Clubs that identify and invest before the final leap are the ones who win both sporting and financial battles.