Don Hutchison now thinks 22-year-old Newcastle player is an ‘absolute bargain’

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For the second game in a row Anthony Gordon’s introduction from off the bench has transformed Newcastle United’s performance.

It would be fair to say that Newcastle really struggled in the first half against Manchester City last night. The stats showed total City dominance in every area of the pitch, but Newcastle’s defence held firm and the teams went into the break at 0-0.

Eddie Howe elected to make a couple of changes at half time, opting to swap both Lewis Hall and Lewis Miley for more experienced players in Anthony Gordon and Bruno Guimaraes.

Howe’s half-time team talk must have been epic

Those changes, along with whatever Howe said in the dressing room had an immediate effect as Newcastle went straight onto the front foot, playing through Man City like they were static training dummies before Alexander Isak put the hosts 1-0 up.

The night belonged to Tino Livramento making his first start for the club and rendering Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku ineffective, but a special mention has to be made for Anthony Gordon and the St James’ Park crowd who both had a huge hand in the win.

Speaking on ESPN at full time, lifelong Newcastle fan Don Hutchison was in awe of the second half performance saying: “A couple of things changed, Eddie Howe brought his best players on. Anthony Gordon, £40million looks like an absolute bargain. I thought Livramento was amazing at right back. But Bruno then came on, he had an influence on [Sandro] Tonali and Joelinton and then Newcastle stepped up.

Newcastle were rewarded with a trip to Old Trafford

“There was an incident on about the hour mark when Anthony Gordon ran about 40-50 yards and he smashed Jack Grealish in front of the dugouts and everyone in St James’ Park was off their seats and that’s exactly what Newcastle thrive on, they thrive on emotion and they made it emotional second half, they were so much better.”

It was actually Mateo Kovacic that Gordon clattered into in front of the dugout for which he seemed to earn the appreciation of Pep Guardiola and possibly even Kovacic himself.

After another memorable night at St James’ Park where Newcastle once again showed that they should fear nobody, their prize for knocking out last season’s treble winners is a trip to Old Trafford for a repeat of last year’s Carabao Cup final to take on Manchester United.