Anthony Gordon's Impact at Barcelona: From Doubts to Key Player

Anthony Gordon has only pulled on the Barcelona shirt five times, but the Nou Camp already knows his name.

The England winger arrived from Newcastle United in May with a £70m price tag and a fair amount of scepticism attached. He has answered with four assists in his first five games for one of Europe’s most ruthless attacking sides. No goals yet. No problem. Not when you fit this quickly into a frontline that has barely stopped scoring since the season began.

Last year, the left flank often belonged to Marcus Rashford, in on loan and familiar from England duty. Now it is Gordon hugging that touchline, driving at full-backs, and stitching himself into Hansi Flick’s attack as if he has been there for years.

A £70m question starts to look cheap

When Barcelona pushed the button on Gordon, making him only the second Englishman to join the club permanently after Gary Lineker in 1986, curiosity came with the deal. So did doubt.

Newcastle had finished 12th in the Premier League. Gordon’s league numbers were solid rather than spectacular: six goals and two assists in 26 appearances, three of those goals from the penalty spot. For £70m, Barcelona were not buying a domestic goal machine.

What they were buying, though, was the player who had ripped through Europe. Ten goals in 12 Champions League games last season, raising his level against the continent’s elite. Only Kylian Mbappe (15) and Harry Kane (14) scored more in the competition. That kind of return forces clubs to look beyond league tables and raw totals.

Gordon had already tasted the Nou Camp as an opponent. Newcastle’s 7-2 defeat in Barcelona in the Champions League last 16 – 8-3 on aggregate – was brutal on the scoreboard but pivotal for him. The noise, the size of the stage, the feeling of that arena: it stayed with him. Months later, it became home.

Winning over the stands before kicking a ball

Gordon did not just walk into the dressing room and hope his football would do the talking. He stepped up to the microphone and did it himself.

His welcome speech came in Spanish, a language he said he picked up with help from a Newcastle physio. Then he dropped a couple of phrases in Catalan when chatting with fans. It was a small gesture, but in Barcelona those details matter. Respect the culture, and the stands respond.

They have. The chants started early, helped by the way he plays and the way he talks about the club. “I feel at home already,” he said. “The city is amazing. The guys have made me feel so welcome. I think I will get better and better the longer I'm here.”

On the pitch, his adaptation has been just as sharp. Flick has given him the left side and a clear role. Stretch the defence. Attack space. Run, and then run again.

A system built for his strengths

Barcelona’s sporting director Deco was blunt when asked why the club chose Gordon over bringing back Rashford.

“Our idea of play is much more linked to Anthony's,” he said. “His style fits with what the coach is looking for.”

You can see it in the way Flick’s side have exploded out of the blocks. Twenty-two goals in their first five games, only three conceded. It is their most prolific start since Flick took charge in May 2024. Raphinha leads the scoring with eight, Lamine Yamal has five, and the threat comes from everywhere.

Gordon’s role is not to dominate the scoreboard yet. It is to detonate space. He can stay wide and isolate a full-back, pull a back line apart with a run in behind, or drift inside to combine with Raphinha, Yamal and the midfield. When Barcelona lose the ball, he snaps into the press, hunting it back high up the pitch.

Flick likes what he sees, even as he waits for Gordon’s first goal.

“I think as a striker, from his side, you want to score goals,” the Barcelona coach said. “He has had some chances and he missed them. But he has made the final pass to prepare the goals and this is also very important.”

The assist that told a story

Nothing summed up Gordon’s early weeks in Spain better than his league debut against Elche.

Two assists in four minutes announced him in the numbers column, but it was a different moment that really caught the eye. Clean through on goal, one-on-one with the Elche keeper, the script was written for a dream debut strike. He tore it up.

Instead of going for glory, Gordon rolled the ball across the box to Fermin Lopez, who finished from close range. The Nou Camp saw the decision, not the missed opportunity. A new signing, in a new league, turning down a personal milestone for the higher-percentage team goal.

“You always want to win but it's always about the team first,” Gordon said afterwards. “Especially at this club.”

For Barcelona fans, that line landed. This was not a winger chasing headlines. This was a player willing to do the unselfish work that makes a star-studded attack function.

From doubts to a different debate

Five games is not a career. It would be reckless to claim Gordon has already answered every question.

He still has no goal in La Liga. Keeping this level of intensity and influence over a long Spanish season, with the demands of Europe on top, will test him in ways he has not faced before. Defenders will adjust. So must he.

But the conversation around him has already shifted. The doubts that followed the fee, the Premier League inconsistency, the modest domestic numbers – they have faded into the background.

No one is asking if he belongs at Barcelona anymore.

The real question now is how central he might become to what Flick is building.