WHAT do you pack if you’re going to be overseas for a month or so? A good book, probably. Well, in the case of Newcastle United winger Anthony Gordon, how about two good books, with a third on the way courtesy of your fiancee?

Gordon has regularly spoken about his love of self-help literature, and the way in which training his mind has helped massively with his football career. He is a big believer in meditation and the importance of pre-event visualisation, as he explained to Gary Neville on his recent appearance on The Overlap, and is using his stint in Germany as an opportunity to further expand his mental development.

‘The Art of Winning: Ten Lessons in Leadership, Purpose and Potential’ by former New Zealand rugby union great Dan Carter is on his reading list for the Euros, along with ‘Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within’ by NAVY Seal and ultra-marathon specialist David Goggins.

Earlier this week, though, Gordon heard England goalkeeping assistant Tom Heaton extolling the virtues of ‘Life Force’, a self-help book by author Tony Robbins that has earned the seal of approval from Cristiano Ronaldo.

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Gordon contacted his fiancée, Annie, and told her to put it on her shopping list. When she heads back out to Germany this week, it will have pride of place in her hand luggage.

“Tom Heaton was talking about Ronaldo at the table the other day and said that was the book he was reading and had suggested to the Man United lads,” said Gordon, in an interview with BBC Five Live.

“I was earwigging about the stuff he was saying, what’s good for the body, and I was thinking, ‘If Ronaldo reads it, I’m going to have a little read and see if I can pick anything out.’

“It’s sort of like a meditation for me, now. I like self-help books, a lot of psychology things. I feel like I’m going to read it and be better or come out of it knowing something that I didn’t before.”

As Newcastle fans have gradually come to discover over the last year or so, Gordon is nothing like the caricature that some supporters might have in their mind when they see or hear him.

He was a keen boxer as a youngster, crediting the sport with helping to build up his physicality, and taught himself chess during last summer’s European Under-21s Championship, which he finished as the Player of the Tournament.

Last year was also when he began writing down his life goals in a diary, charting out a pathway and series of targets that help him remain mentally focused.

“I write them as if they have already happened,” he explained. “That gives me no time to debate them and it’s a clear path to follow.

“I started doing it in the Under-21 Euros. I came off a season when I was struggling. I had just joined Newcastle and I couldn’t really get in the team. I went to the Under-21 Euros and my main goal was to win Player of the Tournament and to win the tournament, which I did.

“They were two massive goals that have gone on to change my life really, because my trajectory (since then) has gone upwards.”

Gordon came into the Euros off the back of a hugely-successful season with Newcastle, and while he was an unused substitute in England’s opening game against Serbia, he will hope to at least be afforded an opportunity off the bench in tomorrow’s second group game against Denmark.