A deal that would see Anthony Gordon move to Chelsea is “absolutely not happening” as it stands with Frank Lampard revealing Everton have set a deadline by which point the issue must be resolved.
The Blues rebuffed an official £45m bid for the 21-year-old earlier this month but Chelsea’s interest has persisted. That has not stretched to a rumoured £60m bid, Lampard confirmed on Friday.
Speaking with less than a week of the transfer window to go, the Blues boss described the academy graduate as one of the best young players he had worked with and stressed that, while he remained an Everton player, he had full confidence in Gordon being able to ignore the speculation over his future and perform to his best.
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Chelsea’s interest in Gordon was revealed earlier this month, with the London outfit then submitting an official bid for the England Under-21 international. While Everton have maintained there is no interest in entertaining bids for him, Chelsea have remained interested in securing his services. Having already spent more than £150m in this transfer window, the club is likely to have the funds to test Everton’s resolve. That point is yet to be reached, however, and Lampard suggested there was still significant distance between the two clubs.
In his pre-Brentford press conference at the Finch Farm training complex, he said: “It is absolutely not happening at this point and that is where we are at and I have got respect for Chelsea, because I did play for them, but my biggest job now is to have an understanding of what I need to do here and, the situation we are in, Anthony is not leaving this club.”
Lampard accepted there was a point - in advance of the transfer window’s closure - at which he would need to draw a line under the issue so he could plan for the season beyond September 1. While he would not reveal that deadline, he said: “Yeah, we are at that situation. We have drawn a red line. It is very difficult, I got asked last week, will he be here at the end of the window and it is an impossible question to answer, really. But I am working now to try and put a squad together and it is my job to get the best squad so there absolutely has to come a time where we have to understand what the squad is going to be and, especially [with] a player of the level of Anthony, I have to know he is going to be here and the good thing is here at the club, myself and everybody involved upstairs has the same kind of thinking so there will be no doubts on that front.”
He added: “In seriousness, there is that point and I won’t say where it is but I think you understand I am getting very close to it.”
While talk over Gordon’s future persists, Lampard has no doubt he will continue to give his all for the club. Gordon has started all three of Everton’s Premier League games so far this season, including two playing out of position as a ‘false nine’ in the absence of first choice striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin through injury.
Lampard described Gordon as a “very good lad” who “loves the club” and added: “If I felt he wasn’t right I wouldn’t put him in that situation and if I felt he didn’t want it or didn’t want to train or play for this club, it would be an entirely different conversation and not such a good one, so I think it shows you how he is dealing with it. It is not easy, we are all human and as much as he loves this club, I think in the cold light of day everyone would understand these things would give a young man a lot to think about, to say the least, but he is made of strong stuff and I am there to support him, which is the most important thing, so he is in the squad, he travels south with us.”
Having moved from West Ham United to Chelsea at the age of 22, Lampard has personal experience that could be of use to Gordon. Asked about that, he said a move that did not go through - to Inter Milan later in his career - also provided context for what Gordon was going through.
He said: “I nearly signed for Inter Milan, at 28, 29 years of age, stayed at Chelsea and it was the best move I made in my life – I was nearly signing for them for different reasons at the time so I understand both sides. The time I moved [from West Ham] and it was great for me and the time I didn’t move and it was great for me. Everyone’s situation is different and I would never sit with players and say ‘listen to what happened to me, it is the story’.
“I can empathise with the feelings of what Anthony might feel, I can also give him advice for what I think is the best thing for him and also first and foremost have to work for the club and do my job and what is best for us and the squad. So I have got all those things [to consider] but I care for Anthony, he has been a dream to work for since I got here and from day one, he has been a standout in terms of application and performance and he is only going to get better so I can completely empathise that this would be a tough situation for any young player and we just have to find the right solution and the window shutting would be helpful for that.”
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