GOING into EURO 2024, precisely what England should do with Jude Bellingham was a source of plenty of debate.
With 23 goals to his name in his debut season at Real Madrid, along with an impressive 13 assists, Bellingham was one of the most feared penalty area attackers in world football. In the first half of the season, it felt like every time he entered the box he’d find himself exiting just as quickly, off to celebrate the inevitable goal he’d just converted.
After 13 games of last season, Bellingham had already scored 13 times. Only two players from Europe’s big five leagues – Serhou Guirassy and Harry Kane – had netted more across all competitions by that point, and only Guirassy was ahead of Bellingham if you take out the benefit of penalties.
And yet, after netting 13 goals before November had even begun last season, it has been a different story this time round. It took him until November to open his account this season.
So, what’s going on with Jude Bellingham? And where did those match-winning displays go?
Before we can talk about Bellingham, we have to start with a few other names – in particular, Kylian Mbappé and Toni Kroos.
While the former’s arrival in Madrid has reconfigured the team’s attacking shape and added in another forward who wants to finish off moves (and a lot of them, at that), the loss of Toni Kroos has exacerbated the feeling that Real Madrid are now a top-heavy team.
What they expected to inherit from Mbappé in terms of goals and game-breaking performances has not yet arrived. What has arrived, however, is a struggle for defensive balance. And with Toni Kroos no longer around to order the team and help them better connect their lines with the ball, Real Madrid are facing a weekly battle when it comes to producing dependable collective football, in and out of possession.
If you defend better, you attack better – and vice versa.
Despite a 4-0 win over Osasuna last time out to add a bit of gloss before the international break, Real Madrid are currently finding this out in the opposite direction. And in the midst of it all, Bellingham has gone from match-winner to more of a corrector.
Though he retains a fair amount of freedom in possession, Ancelotti has required the Englishman to take on more defensive responsibilities and make up the running power that rarely comes from Real Madrid’s top line. He can still run hard into the box, but he better run back into position even harder.
Inevitably, without the same structure behind him last season, launching himself into the box with quite the same consistency and conviction starts to look less appealing. It’s not that he’s playing with the handbrake on this season, but Bellingham knows he needs to be more aware of the panorama when Real Madrid lose the ball – as well as before it even gets that far.
On a number of occasions, Bellingham’s second season duties have looked like a thankless task – especially when certain corners of the media are asking where his decisive nature has gone, without showing too much acknowledgement for the sacrifice that has been made.
The new league season was only 45 minutes old when, at half time of their 1-1 draw at Mallorca in August, Bellingham was caught on camera urging his star-studded attack to help him out; the reality of their new team already taking hold for him.
“You three need to finish,” he said, stood in front of Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo. “Because the running back, it’s f***ing tiring.”
Despite being one of the best box-to-box players in the world, doing it every three or four days to a high level is inevitably difficult – especially when the ground that has to be covered just got a whole lot bigger, and Bellingham is having to think about what might happen behind him a lot more.
In this new context, the reality is that the 21-year-old is simply not arriving in advanced areas as often.
Bellingham is averaging around 10 fewer touches per 90 in the final third this season, dropping from 30 last season to right around 20 this time. Similarly, the share of his overall touches made in that area has dropped from 39 percent down to just 30 this term.
At the same time, Bellingham’s defensive activity is currently the highest it’s been in a league campaign since his one and only season with Birmingham City. His per 90 average for tackles and interceptions in LaLiga this term has jumped up to 3.9, which is higher even than his first campaign with Borussia Dortmund as an effervescent 17-year-old.
Over in the UEFA Champions League, it’s a similar story. Bellingham leads all Real Madrid players by a significant margin this season when it comes to harrying opponents and working without the ball. In terms of high-intensity pressures applied on an opposition player, the Stourbridge native averages 56 per 90 minutes played. That’s more than twice as many as Kylian Mbappé (23.8).
And even from Real Madrid’s typical 4-4-2 shape out of possession, Bellingham is still making more in the final third (17.3) than Mbappé (14.6) manages from the front line of the press.
This more workmanlike version of Bellingham also happens to chime with developments in the English national team. Specifically, the emergence of a host of attacking players that might produce a similar effect to what has happened at Real Madrid, with the 21-year-old having to play deeper on the pitch out of necessity.
In the form of Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and Anthony Gordon, England now have a talented but youthful core of players to occupy the attacking positions. That’s before you throw in Noni Madueke, Jack Grealish and a host of others that are probably only a decent run of form away from joining the conversation. Indeed, it’s likely that Thomas Tuchel will only be able to call upon three of those four at any one time in his starting XIs, meaning the competition for those positions behind Harry Kane is already plenty high.
In the same way that England mirrored Bellingham’s featured attacking role for Real Madrid last season, it’s logical to think the same will happen again.
Maybe when all is said and done, 2023-24 will stand as the great outlier of Bellingham’s career; the product of special circumstances. Or perhaps it’ll be the reference point for a player who can adapt season-by-season to all types of different midfield roles, with the sacrificial version of the current campaign standing in support to his match-winning version of yesteryear.
When Jude Bellingham picked the no. 22 shirt back in his Birmingham City days, it was guided by the intention to be a no. 4, a no. 8 and a no. 10 all within the same player.
Here in 2024-25, being all of them – all of the time – isn’t only his call to make.
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