Who is Newcastle’s biggest disappointment — and why is it Anthony Gordon?

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.

Now, with patience thinning and performances trending the wrong way, Gordon has become an uncomfortable symbol of promise unfulfilled — a player who once embodied momentum and now feels like dead weight in a side struggling to rediscover its edge.

A move that needed time — and came with baggage

Gordon’s arrival on Tyneside in January 2023 was anything but clean. Newcastle paid around £45 million to prise him away from Everton, a fee that raised eyebrows even in a market numb to excess. Everton needed cash. Newcastle needed a wide forward with pace and intensity. Gordon needed an exit — though not everyone at Goodison Park agreed with the manner of it.

His final weeks at Everton were messy, defined by training-ground absences, public frustration and a fanbase that felt betrayed by one of their own. When Newcastle came calling, Gordon arrived carrying both expectation and resentment, the kind that can either harden a player or hollow them out.

On the pitch, the adjustment was slow. The first six months were disjointed and awkward, with Gordon often looking like a spare part. His decision-making was rushed, his end product erratic, and his confidence visibly brittle. Eddie Howe persisted, but it was not immediately clear whether Gordon was learning a new system or simply drowning in one.

Momentum builds and belief follows

Then, gradually, it clicked. Gordon’s second full season told a very different story. By 2023/24, he was no longer a passenger but a driver. Used primarily from the left, he became one of Newcastle’s most reliable attacking outlets, stretching defences, attacking space aggressively and — crucially — delivering numbers.

He finished the 2023/24 Premier League season with 11 goals and 10 assists, comfortably the most productive campaign of his career. Many of those contributions came in big moments, too, with Gordon thriving in transition and showing a growing understanding of when to release the ball and when to commit defenders. His pressing from the front fit Howe’s philosophy perfectly, and for a spell, Newcastle looked a more complete side with Gordon high and wide, harassing full-backs and forcing turnovers.

There was a sense that Newcastle had not just bought potential, but realised it.

The drop-off no one expected

What followed has been jarring. Gordon’s output fell sharply the following season, and while Newcastle’s wider struggles offered some mitigation, his individual regression was difficult to ignore. Goals dried up. Assists became sporadic. The confidence that once defined his game appeared to leak away, replaced by something more frantic and less effective.

Even as his numbers declined, Gordon’s work rate never did. He continued to press relentlessly, track runners and throw himself into duels. Coaches value that. Teammates notice it. But effort, without incision, only goes so far.

Increasingly, Gordon’s game became about buying contact rather than beating defenders. Where he once drove past full-backs, he now seemed content to slow down, initiate contact and appeal for fouls. Attacks stalled. Momentum evaporated. The directness that made him so dangerous was replaced by predictability.

Recklessness and its consequences

More worrying has been the edge that crept into Gordon’s tackling. Always an emotional player, he began to channel frustration in the wrong moments, lunging into challenges he did not need to make. That recklessness came to a head in 2025, when a red card ruled him out of the League Cup final — a devastating absence in one of Newcastle’s biggest games of the modern era.

The pattern repeated the following season. In the 2025/26 campaign, Gordon was sent off against Liverpool in a moment of ill-discipline that shifted the balance of the match and arguably cost Newcastle valuable points. By then, it no longer felt like bad luck. It felt like habit.

Statistically, the decline has been stark. Gordon’s 2025/26 season has yielded just four goals and three assists, with the majority of those goals coming from the penalty spot rather than open play. For a winger whose value is supposed to lie in dynamism and creativity, it is an alarming profile.

Running out of road

Football rarely turns on effort alone, and Newcastle’s patience is beginning to wear thin. Gordon looks like a player who has lost clarity — unsure whether to simplify his game or force moments that no longer come naturally. The sharpness is gone. The confidence has ebbed. What remains is industry without impact.

He has, in truth, been fortunate. Newcastle’s lack of genuine competition on the flanks has insulated him from the consequences of poor form. Were there a fully-fit, in-form alternative pushing hard for his place, Gordon would already be spending time on the bench, if not longer stretches off it.

That, more than anything, is the indictment. Once seen as a cornerstone of Newcastle’s attacking future, Gordon now feels like a problem to be managed rather than a solution to be trusted. His rise was real. His fall has been quieter, slower — but no less significant.

And unless something changes soon, the question will no longer be whether Anthony Gordon can rediscover his best form at Newcastle, but whether Newcastle can afford to keep waiting for it.