Anthony Gordon Was Chosen Over Marcus Rashford for a £70m Barcelona Move and Has Already Set Up Four Goals in His First Five Games

• Anthony Gordon has provided four assists in his first five matches for Barcelona after a £70m move from Newcastle United this summer.
• Barcelona sporting director Deco has said Gordon’s style suited Hansi Flick’s system more than Marcus Rashford’s, explaining the decision to sign the England winger instead of keeping the on-loan forward.
• Barcelona have scored 22 goals in five games this season, their most prolific start under Flick, who took charge in May 2024, with Gordon operating from the left-wing spot Rashford occupied last term.

The Winger Barcelona Picked Instead of Rashford Is Already Delivering

Anthony Gordon has called Barcelona “the biggest club on the planet” and said he dreamed about playing for them as a child. Five matches into life at the Nou Camp, the England winger is giving Barcelona’s supporters plenty of reasons to believe the feeling should be mutual.

The 25-year-old has already provided four assists for the free-scoring Spanish champions-elect, still hunting his first goal but fitting so naturally into the left-wing role that Marcus Rashford filled on loan last season that Barcelona’s decision-makers no longer sound like they are justifying a gamble. They sound like they are explaining a plan that is working.

Chosen Over Rashford

When Gordon completed his £70m move this summer, he became only the second English player to join Barcelona on a permanent deal, after Gary Lineker in 1986. There was plenty of curiosity surrounding the transfer, and not all of it flattering. Gordon had enjoyed an outstanding Champions League campaign with Newcastle, but he had been inconsistent in the Premier League and posted relatively modest domestic numbers: six league goals and two assists in 26 appearances, with three of those goals coming from the penalty spot, as Newcastle finished 12th.

Rashford had spent the previous season on loan at Barcelona from Manchester United, rebuilding his reputation in La Liga after falling out with Ruben Amorim at Old Trafford. Barcelona had an option to buy him for around £26m, a fraction of what they went on to spend on Gordon. Choosing to let that option lapse and spend £70m on an England international with modest Premier League output instead was the kind of call that invited scrutiny from Barcelona’s demanding supporters before a ball had been kicked.

Barcelona sporting director Deco was asked directly why the club had chosen Gordon over the more decorated Rashford. His answer was blunt about system fit rather than reputation.

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

A Different Story in Europe

Gordon’s domestic numbers only told half the story. In the Champions League last season he scored 10 goals in 12 appearances for Newcastle, consistently raising his level against the best teams on the continent. Only Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappe, with 15, and Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane, with 14, scored more in the competition.

He had already been given a glimpse of exactly what playing at the Nou Camp would feel like a few months before his transfer, when Newcastle travelled there for the second leg of a Champions League last-16 tie. The Magpies were beaten 7-2 on the night, losing 8-3 on aggregate, but for Gordon the occasion offered a taste of the stadium he would go on to call home.

Lineker made his name at Barcelona in the mid-1980s as a proven goalscorer with a World Cup Golden Boot already to his name. Gordon arrived with a very different profile: a wide player who had never scored more than six league goals in a single Premier League season, asked to prove his level in Spain rather than confirm it. The comparison stops there, but the fact that only one Englishman before him had made a permanent move to Barcelona in almost four decades gives some sense of how rare this kind of transfer is, whatever a player’s reputation going in.

Settling in Fast at the Nou Camp

Gordon delivered his welcome speech in Spanish, a language he said he learned with help from one of Newcastle’s Spanish physios, before adding a couple of phrases in Catalan when he spoke with fans. It is a small detail, but one that Barcelona’s support has noticed.

His first league game produced the clearest illustration of what he offers. Gordon produced two assists in the space of four minutes against Elche on his debut. He went one-on-one with the Elche goalkeeper and had the chance to open his Barcelona account there and then, choosing instead to square the ball across the face of goal for Fermin Lopez, who scored from close range.

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

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

Gordon has been equally direct about how quickly the move has felt like home. “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.”

Barcelona’s Front Three

Flick’s side have scored 22 goals across their first five games this season while conceding only three, their most prolific start under the German coach, who took charge in May 2024. Raphinha leads the scoring with eight, Lamine Yamal has five, and the goals have arrived from all over the pitch.

Gordon’s pace and directness suit that system. Playing primarily from the left, he stretches defences with his ability to attack space, and his movement without the ball opens gaps for team-mates, most visibly alongside Yamal and Raphinha. When Barcelona lose possession, his willingness to press immediately has become one of the smaller details that makes the attack function as a unit rather than a collection of individuals.

He can stay wide and isolate a full-back, attack the space in behind a defensive line, or drift inside to combine with Barcelona’s other forwards. It gives Flick a different route to goal from the one Rashford offered on loan, built more around directness and pressing than the Englishman’s link-up play.

The Bigger Question Still to Answer

None of this settles the argument for good. Gordon has played only five matches, and holding this level of performance and intensity across a full season in Spain is a different challenge to a hot start in September. Barcelona’s schedule will test him against opponents better organised than Elche, in competitions more demanding than the opening weeks of a league campaign.

But the conversation around Gordon has already shifted in a way that will shape how he is judged going forward. Before the move, the debate was whether a player with modest Premier League numbers belonged in Barcelona’s starting eleven at all. Five games in, with four assists, two goals conjured for team-mates in a single half against Elche, and glowing assessments from his manager and sporting director, the question is no longer whether Gordon belongs. It is how good he can become.

For a player whose Premier League output last season drew as much criticism as praise, and who spent a Champions League night at the Nou Camp on the losing side wearing a Newcastle shirt, that is a considerable turn in fortune. A £70m transfer built on a modest domestic goal return and an outstanding continental one has, in the space of five matches, begun to look like a calculated read of a player’s best qualities rather than a reputational gamble. Barcelona paid £70m on the belief that Gordon’s directness and work rate would suit Flick’s team more than Rashford’s did. Four assists and a captivated home crowd into the deal, that belief looks well placed.