The English midfielder has started finding the net with regularity once again, much to the relief of Los Blancos
So, that crisis lasted about three months. Jude Bellingham was in massive trouble, so we were told. The goalscorer, who was never really a goalscorer, had stopped scoring goals. it took Bellingham until November 9 to find the net for the first time for Real Madrid this season. And after a poor run of results – that had little to do with his individual performances – the "overrated" rhetoric was in full swing. The one-season-wonder badge was thrown around. Jude who?
It was frighteningly easy to explain Bellingham's early-season struggles. He was playing further away from goal, in a revamped side, with more goalscorers in the team. This is not a formula for seeing the net ripple consistently. Either way, Bellingham is back – although he never really left. He has scored five in his last six games, and four in a row. The efficiency is there, as is the crucial swagger to his game. A 20-goal-per-season striker Bellingham is not, but there are echoes of his early days in a Madrid shirt.
And with Los Blancos coming off a crucial Champions League game, and the injuries piling up, his mojo couldn't have come back at a better time. There are many genres of Bellingham. The one that can score plenty is here, and Madrid will be all the better for it.
GettyA mad 2023 tails off
Last year, we were told, Jude Bellingham could score 40 goals. It certainly seemed like it, at least at one point, when he was eclipsing marks set by Cristiano Ronaldo in his early days in Madrid white. A hot start was sure to evolve into an all-time great season for him on an individual level. Of course, things didn't quite work out that way after Bellingham had initially hit double digits in no time, bagging 15 before Christmas.
Indeed, his numbers soon tailed off, to widespread bemusement. How could this player, who had been so good in front of goal, suddenly stop scoring? Football is, of course, quite a complex thing every now and then. And this all happened for a number of reasons. First, he was assigned to a more withdrawn role, playing deeper, and away from the goal. Secondly, Vinicius Jr started scoring for fun. And perhaps most importantly, his luck went away.
Expected goal stats can be a bit silly sometimes, but Bellingham was radically overperforming his xG through the first few months of the season. Eventually, he kept the statisticians happy by reverting to the mean. It is worth noting, at this point, that having a converted centre-midfielder score 23 goals in all competitions, at the age of 21, in a new country, for the biggest club in the world, is quite the achievement. We tend to forget these things.
AdvertisementGettyMbappe, Vinicius & Madrid's new attack
This season was always going to be a bit more complicated. The addition of Kylian Mbappe, form of Vinicius, and conundrum of Rodrygo meant that Bellingham knew he would be pushed into a deeper role. Carlo Ancelotti admitted, in fact, that the Englishman might score less.
"The surprise isn't this year, the surprise was last year, when he scored lots of goals which nobody expected and helped us a lot," Ancelotti said in late October. "The problem this year isn't that we're lacking Bellingham's goals. We've always scored goals, and we'll always score, because we have talented players up front. For us, in this moment, the work he's doing is more important than the goals he scored last year."
Not that it was really a problem. Madrid haven't found their best form yet, and at times have looked disjointed in the final third. There are too many nice individual things going, and not enough cohesion. Systems aren't in place, and they are frighteningly vulnerable in defensive transitions – although they have admittedly improved in recent weeks. Either way, Bellingham was forced into a deeper role, away from goal, told to create rather than score.
It's something he has done rather admirably. Bellingham has bagged six assists for Madrid in all competitions, his understanding with Vinicius bordering on telepathic. And then there are the other bits. It has somehow been neglected by the wider football consciousness that we are talking about a centre-midfielder here, a player more Steven Gerrard than Cristiano Ronaldo. Yes, the goals are nice, but Bellingham is a player built on being very good at pretty much everything, buoyed by an awesome work rate. And centre-midfielder Jude is really quite good at football. In effect, then, the goals were going to dry up. A "drought" was always inevitable.
Getty Images SportNo luck & a whole lot of scrutiny
Luck is involved here, too. In the earlier part of the 2023-24 season, it felt like every single bounce was going Bellingham's way. He would make those signature late runs into the box, and a deflection would fall to his feet. He took advantage of a few tap-ins, and enjoyed the odd fortunate deflection or two. It is also worth pointing out that he spanked one in from 30 yards to win El Clasico – two things can be true at the same time.
Early this season, those bounces eluded him. He was still doing all the right things – albeit in a smaller sample size. Five of his first 11 shots were still on target, and he hit the woodwork on a couple of occasions. But all of the little elements that led to a hot start in his debut season weren't quite there this time around.
Madrid, too, were performing poorly in the earlier days of the season. Mbappe couldn't time a run, and everyone forgot how to defend. It was only moments of individual quality that kept them in the title picture early on. Bellingham, of course, was not above blame. But everything was going wrong. He was just part of a nervy system.
Rewinding to the Euros and the defeat to Spain in the final – plus the media and fan scrutiny that haunted the Three Lions at every corner – and that clearly affected Bellingham. Billed as the country's saviour and the main man who would finally step up and end the long, agonising wait for a trophy, the Madrid midfielder went as far as claiming he was made the scapegoat when it all fell apart.
Getty Images SportJude benefits from injury crisis
Back to Madrid matters and the opportunities were always going to come. If there has been any silver lining to Los Blancos' wonky start to 2024-25 it's that it has given Ancelotti the freedom to experiment. The 4-3-3 that he tried at first didn't work, while injuries to Dani Carvajal and Eder Militao saw the balance and grit in the side fall away.
And when Rodrygo suffered a muscle injury, Ancelotti had the perfect excuse to return to the diamond that served him so well last season.
Just like that, Bellingham was back. Playing behind a duo of Vinicius and Mbappe, the opportunities started to come again. The England international was in forward areas more often, shooting more, and creating more for others. He scored Madrid's third against Leganes on November 25, darting into the box to nod home off a deflected shot. Pretty? Not even remotely. But it was the exact kind of position he occupied last year – a goal brought about by both opportunity and instinct.