I think his age isn't really the important thing in this sense, it's more where he's up to with his development. It's not uncommon at all for players in his sort of position to be regulars at 21. The most recent England squad had 8 players 23 and under in it, some of those players have been in the side for years and have won trophies, played in the biggest finals etc. We need to move away from the idea that expecting someone like Gordon to positively influence games at this level is completely unfair, because it's not. He's not a 17 year old who's filling in in an emergency, he's 21 and has been in and around senior football for 3 years now. Saka had to take a crucial penalty at Wembley to keep England in the Euros at 19 and we have people saying asking Gordon to keep a corner in play on a saturday afternoon in February is putting too much pressure on the lad.
I've said before that what doesn't help Gordon is this constant insistence that he will definitely get better. He might, but he might not. He's proved that he can play at this level and that is something we should all be happy about. I honestly don't know whether he's got the ability to go right to the top, sometimes he does things that are genuinely exceptional (there was a little turn on Saturday that was brilliant) and other times he just looks very ordinary. As far as i'm concerned he's in the team on merit at the moment and he should stay there. At some point that might change though, if he doesn't start to convert some of his bright moments and energy into tangible results. If he never becomes any more than a solid PL squad player who does a job for us then that's still a win, but people always saying he's going to bloom and do x, y and z can lead to a level of expectation that he may never be able to match.
Yes lots of fair points.
The development thing, is to some extent though, a code for how much better we think he can get. That's the game with footballers. To try and identify how much more they can improve. Or at the end, how slowly they will decline.
Theres no guarantees, and it's not Fifa or whatever (where you get a +8 between 21-26 or whatever) but as a rule it's fair to say a lot of players will improve between 21 to 25. The big gamble with Gordon, is his intrinsic ability has been overstated. By that I mean not that what he did last season was poor, but it was uncharistically good. So he could keep improving, but he had a purple patch, and may only improve enough to match that purple patch.
I also agree with your latter point, if he just proves to be a squad player, that will be fine. That's sort of Tom Davies, or Mason Holgate. The issue I have, is for a lot of people that will be some sort of disgraceful outcome, where the lad is an utter joke etc.
I sort of see the beginnings of this with some of the reactions. That unless he is scoring, or getting MOTM each week, people are disappointed. Essentially expectation far outstrips any sort of realistic likelihood for improvement.
In terms of play, he is a hard one. As you say, he does certain things very well, but other bits less so. Aside from a strong defensive contribution, he carries the ball really well, but too often for me he doesnt do so in the right areas. He doesnt put it together well enough yet. He can shoot well, but doesnt. He times his runs well, and has a good leap, but doesnt then attack the ball with any conviction.
That moment is a but of a microcosm of Gordon really. He does the hard bit, he arrives, between the posts at the perfect moment. He is between centre backs and he out jumps Koulibaly. I'm not having a go at Gray, but Gray could never do that. He does the hard bit. The easy bit, is to connect with the header, and from that position almost certainly score.
You see a lot of those imperfections with him. But then I did with Davies too, and they didnt get better, they just got worse, and slowly the positives in his game got lost. So he almost certainly had to start making the most of them, or you just tail off. You dont really remain at contradictory potential forever.
