- 2 years ago
5 goals in 4 games for Real Madrid, a starring role for England during the international break, Jude Bellingham is already having an incredible 23/24 season... but is he arguably the best player on the planet right now?
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00:00 Hi everyone, yes hello, me again, Adam Cleary from 442 here and I would like to talk about
00:10 Jude Bellingham.
00:11 Now as you will no doubt have seen he's had quite a good start to life at Real Madrid,
00:16 he's played four games for them, he's scored five goals and that by any stretch is really
00:21 good.
00:22 But you know what it's like, a young English player has a run of good performances or a
00:25 couple of good games and we start just loading the expectation and ramping up the hype so
00:31 you've got to be really careful with how you choose your words so I'm going to put this
00:34 very gently, I think he might be the best player in the world right now.
00:44 The best player in the world, you can't go round saying things like that, that's a ridiculous
00:49 claim to make and you're not wrong, you're absolutely correct in saying that but also
00:54 just looking at it, he is.
00:57 So as I said right at the start, five goals in four games for Real Madrid, that is one
01:01 hell of a start, he got eight goals in 41 Bundesliga appearances last season so that
01:07 is quite the uplift.
01:08 Were he to continue on the rate he's currently scoring at, he would finish on about 47 goals
01:16 this season which is a lot.
01:18 Now I don't think he's going to finish the season on 47 league goals although at this
01:22 point I wouldn't entirely rule it out but clearly something is going on between his
01:27 transfer from Dortmund to Madrid, something is happening with the way he's playing football
01:31 which is making him far more dangerous in the opposition box.
01:34 And not just the most surface level way of looking at this, this is how Real Madrid have
01:38 been setting up with Bellingham in the side this season.
01:41 He has been the very tip of the diamond playing in this number 10 role with a midfield three
01:46 not even including Modric and Kroos most of the time in behind him.
01:50 Now just this in of itself is incredibly interesting because it's completely different to how he
01:54 was used at Dortmund.
01:55 Now Dortmund are quite tactically flexible, you would quite often see them on the left
01:58 of a midfield three, the same kind of position you see in Bringlem but a lot of the time
02:02 what they would do, can my brain figure all this out, yes it can, is you would be deployed
02:07 as the right hand side in a double pivot of a 4-2-3-1.
02:13 Now just think about that for a second, like how many examples in the history of football
02:17 can you think of where a top, top team has gone and paid top, top money for a player
02:23 who has predominantly played in a deep midfield role and then not only stuck them immediately
02:28 in at number 10 but just sort of said go on, if you want to be the 9 as well just feel
02:33 free.
02:34 But the thing is there was a very good reason for Dortmund using him in this position, that's
02:37 because if you just look at it he's right in the very centre of the pitch.
02:41 That is of all the positions in this line-up the one who's going to see the ball the most.
02:45 It's a position which allowed him to do all the things he's really good at doing, he can
02:49 get involved in Dortmund's build-up phase when they're working it round the back, he
02:52 can act as a screen in front of the back four, he can get on it, he can drive it further
02:56 up the pitch and as play develops and situations allow he can get into this front line and
03:01 sort of play as a 10 as well.
03:03 Now you'll have heard this a million times by now, the whole reason he had the number
03:06 22 when he was coming through at Birmingham because one of his coaches was like oh wow
03:10 you're a great defensive midfielder and central midfielder and attacking midfielder.
03:15 So like a 4, an 8 and a 10 will add all those up but it's kind of a good gag but also it
03:21 was completely true.
03:23 And so Dortmund stuck him in a position where every single game he was able to contribute
03:27 to the play here, to the play here and to the play here and doing all these jobs combined
03:32 he would still post 8 or 9 out of 10 every single week for all these different jobs.
03:38 But you see, here's the thing, right you've probably got a job and if you don't now you
03:42 definitely remember having one, I'm willing to bet you had to do way more in that job
03:48 than you were actually supposed to.
03:49 Maybe you were hired to do like one thing which is the way the place worked, ended up
03:53 having to do two or three others sometimes as well and maybe you like Bellingham would
03:57 give 8 or 9 out of 10 in all these different roles every single day you were there but
04:01 in the back of your mind you were probably thinking if I just focused on the thing I
04:06 was hired for, the thing I'm really good at, I wouldn't be giving 8 or 9 out of 10s everywhere,
04:11 I could give you 10 consistently at that one thing.
04:15 And that is in essence what Real Madrid have done with Bellingham, like they've looked
04:19 at him and thought yeah sure you can contribute in every single area of the pitch but this
04:23 is Real Madrid, every other player who's here is here because they are great in that position
04:29 so let's just give you a job and you can do that instead.
04:33 And so with the way they have set this team up with the midfield diamond, the job they
04:38 have given Jude Bellingham to do is simply kill teams.
04:44 Bellingham is the 10 in a diamond sure but it's also completely accurate to look at this
04:49 as a 4-3-3 with Bellingham right at the top playing as a false 9 and dropping back into
04:54 the space.
04:55 If we look at the goals he's already scored for Madrid, these are not the opportunities
04:59 or the chances or even the finishes you would expect of a player playing as a midfielder
05:04 with licence to get into the box, they are out and out centre forward goals.
05:09 His link up play around the box and how he works with the other forwards is exemplary
05:13 yes, but he's not holding that position.
05:16 When he sees the kind of gap a centre forward should be filling, he is just filling it.
05:20 And it has led in the few short months since he's left Dortmund to creating an entirely
05:25 different player.
05:26 It's a small sample size but let me just show you a few select stats from last season's
05:30 Bundesliga and this season's La Liga and you'll see just how drastic this is.
05:34 So per 90 minutes last season in the league Jude Bellingham was posting 3.7 tackles or
05:40 interceptions per game and this put him comfortably in the top 10% possibly even the top 5% of
05:46 midfielders in Europe in that particular stat.
05:48 He was winning the ball back a lot because that was a major part of his role.
05:52 He was carrying the ball on average about 264 yards every single game which again puts
05:57 him right in the very top percentage of that bracket across Europe because his job was
06:01 when he got on the ball in deep areas to then help the team move it forward usually using
06:06 his dribbling skills.
06:07 Last season he was making about one and a half passes into the penalty area every single
06:12 game again because he was allowed and encouraged to be in that part of the pitch but it wasn't
06:16 his main responsibility.
06:17 And finally the average distance of all the shots he took in the league was 18 yards from
06:23 goal.
06:24 So yes he would get it in the box and yes he would shoot from range but on average pretty
06:26 much every chance he was trying to take came from outside or just on the edge of the penalty
06:31 area.
06:32 So you can visualise this kind of player in your head can't you?
06:34 He's an all-rounder, he's good at winning the ball back so he does that a lot, he's
06:37 really good on the ball so he carries the ball up the pitch a lot and he's good in the
06:40 final third as well so he passes the ball into the box and occasionally he'll have a
06:44 pop from distance.
06:45 He does a little bit of everything.
06:47 Now while it is a small sample size I'll grant you let's just compare those numbers to this
06:51 season so far.
06:52 Per 90 Jude Bellingham is making about 1.2 tackles or interceptions per game.
06:57 He is carrying the ball on average 117 yards.
07:02 He's making 3.2 passes into the penalty area per 90 and finally the average distance of
07:08 his shots is just under 10 yards.
07:11 And then obviously just to add on top of that he scored five goals in four games.
07:16 That is a profile of a player who can win the ball back sure but he doesn't worry about
07:19 it and he can carry the ball up the pitch sure but he doesn't worry about it.
07:23 What he does worry about is how he can f*** you up.
07:26 And this is a grotesque oversimplification but if you just look at the formation you
07:30 can see exactly what it is Real Madrid are trying to do.
07:33 They have locked this area down, they have taken care of all the jobs here and they have
07:37 even split the two attacking players.
07:39 They have put Jude Bellingham in the most important area of the pitch when it comes
07:44 to creating chances and scoring goals and just said go where you want, do what you want.
07:49 And the results as you've seen have been incredible.
07:52 But the thing is my dear friends none of that makes him the best player in the world.
07:57 He's just having a really good attacking run and loads of other number 10s will do similar
08:02 things, post similar numbers, have similar highlight reels across the course of the season.
08:07 So why then is Bellingham so different?
08:10 It's because it isn't actually accurate to say they've given him a free roll as a number
08:15 10.
08:16 Like they have, he pushes forward into the box, he drops wide, he drops into the midfield,
08:19 he has complete freedom to do what he wants to do in that roll.
08:23 But he's actually got complete freedom to just do what he wants to do full stop.
08:29 Bellingham isn't making as many tackles or interceptions per game but the ones he is
08:33 making are absolutely vital.
08:35 And likewise he isn't getting on the ball in deep areas and driving it up the pitch
08:38 as much as he was.
08:39 But when he is doing it it's because the game sort of demands he does it.
08:43 Real Madrid are struggling to play through or go around so he just takes himself out
08:47 of this position and goes where he needs to go.
08:50 At Real Madrid his number one job is to look for goal scoring opportunities either for
08:54 himself or for his teammates but he also has the license to simply read the entire game
09:00 state and decide where he needs to be to have the biggest possible impact.
09:05 And just that like staggering range of ability, that power to exert your influence across
09:11 a game regardless of what state it's currently in, whether you're attacking or defending,
09:15 whether you're under pressure or on top, to just look across the entire pitch and think
09:19 where can I make the maximum possible impact here and then be in a system designed to allow
09:25 you to do that, that legitimately puts you in the conversation for best player in the
09:30 world right now.
09:31 And even if you haven't watched Real Madrid there was a really good example of this in
09:35 the England game.
09:36 Like England kind of want to be a 4-3-3 but he was definitely playing more as a 10 albeit
09:40 in a totally different system but he gets on the ball wide left because that's where
09:45 he felt he needed to impact the game.
09:46 The centre of the pitch was really congested, there wasn't too much he could do over there
09:49 so he recognised the space developing and he went out to try and make something happen.
09:54 But as soon as he does make that thing happen and he lays the ball off to Phil Foden he
09:57 then reassesses the situation and realises that some space has developed right in the
10:03 most dangerous area of the pitch.
10:05 So rather than doing what a number 10 would do in that situation which is either keep
10:08 your position out wide in case the ball gets recycled or move to the edge of the box to
10:12 kind of get yourself set in case the ball gets turned over, he just recognises it and
10:17 he goes into the centre forward area of the pitch, the ball breaks loose and he scores.
10:22 And that's the thing about most of the goals he scored this season, like none of them represent
10:26 like technical brilliance or particularly mind-blowing to watch but they do represent
10:31 the sort of striker's instinct you would expect a 30-year-old 200 goal forward to have.
10:38 And he's a 20-year-old who last season was playing in a double pivot.
10:42 Anyway, I'm going to stop there because I could genuinely spend about half an hour just
10:45 talking about the handful of games he's played this season.
10:47 He is easily the most fascinating, interesting, exciting, must-watch player in world football
10:54 right now and he's English so that's nice.
10:56 As ever though, please do head down to the comments and let us know your thoughts on
10:59 his opening few performances for Real Madrid as well as the two England games because one
11:02 was great and one wasn't so there's a whole other thing to be said there.
11:06 And while you're here, please do subscribe to 442 on YouTube.
11:09 We are so close to 442 subscribers and me, a nerd, really wants that.
11:16 Meantime though, grab me on Instagram threads, @AdamClearyCLELY, 442 socials in the corner.
11:22 We are on the last week of the beautiful Newcastle United issue.
11:25 Please do buy that from all good retailers and the crap ones as well.
11:29 And until next time, I've been Adam Cleary, that's been Jude Bellingham and I'll see you
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