The Reds prospect has struggled for consistent game time since making the temporary switch to Carrow Road, tallying up just nine senior appearances in all, scoring once. He played just seven minutes as Norwich fell to a 2-1 defeat against Burnley in its most recent EFL Championship outing.
Prior to this, Gordon had failed to make the squad for the Canaries’ previous three fixtures in the league with the winger having featured for just eight minutes of action since September. The Liverpool ECHO has reported that it is expected that the attacker will be recalled by his parent club in January.
That said, their report does state that a definitive call on whether the 20-year-old will return to Merseyside will be made following talks in the coming month. Addressing Gordon’s situation, Norwich head coach Johannes Hoff Thorup expressed his sympathy towards the starlet, saying: “The ideal scenario was that he was in the starting line-up every weekend.
“That is not the situation at the moment. We try to develop him, improve him, have talks with him and treat him like one of the others as we are, of course, supposed to do. We will keep doing that.”
Insisting that the striker could still work his way into his plans, he continued: “I don’t think I will consider now whether he should go back in January because I see such a busy schedule, so I can easily see that he could make his way into the team again if he’s training well and doing his stuff like he’s supposed to do, then there is a way in for him.”
Ultimately, the Canaries boss has put the ball in Gordon’s court when it comes to whether he will remain in Norfolk. He said: “At the end, it is also up to him in his career what his next step should be. If he wants to stay here and fight, I would be more than happy about it because we need good players, and he is definitely a good player.
“He’s struggling to get into the team with all it takes physically and especially tactically. As a football team, we need more than 20 players to create the competition that we want to have. It’s a natural thing, and for the moment, he is out of the team because I prioritise some of the others.”
Reinforcing his message, he asserted: “It can change. What I do is select the 20 players that I think are the best ones for the game that we have to win. I will do that every day and every time. What it means is if you are out of that team, then it’s a decision from me that I think some of the other guys are better suited for that game week.
“It can change, and it can change in a league where there are so many games, and we go into a period where we play with only three or four games, rest in between, sometimes even less than that.”
Thorup added: “It is always my words to the players that are not in the team to do the same every day they meet in they have to keep the same high standards no matter if you play or not. That’s the only thing that you can do.”
