Shay Terry

🚨 Frank Lampard on Jude Bellingham’s performance against Croatia: “I’ve noticed something strange happens whenever Jude Bellingham has a great game. Everybody starts looking for an old midfielder to explain him. ‘Is he like Lampard?’ ‘Is he like Gerrard?’ ‘Is he like Zidane?’ Please leave us alone. Tonight I watched him score, create chances, carry the ball, win duels, defend, play long passes and finish with three assists. At some point I stopped analysing him and started wondering what exactly England had asked everybody else to do. I remember a coach once telling me, ‘Frank, midfielders have to choose their moments. You cannot be everywhere.’ Very sensible advice. I’m beginning to suspect nobody gave it to Jude. Croatia try to play through midfield, he’s there. England need somebody between the lines, he’s there. Gordon needs the ball, Jude finds him. England need a goal, Jude scores it. Morgan Rogers comes on and apparently Jude decides, ‘You haven’t had one yet,’ and gives him another assist. One goal. Three assists. That’s not a midfield performance. That’s somebody going through the team sheet completing jobs. The funny thing is, people used to argue about where England should play him. Six? Eight? Ten? Tonight I think he played yes. And I’ve seen the comparisons. Apparently somebody watched me every week and has decided I was never as good as Bellingham. That’s fine. At this rate, give Jude another few international breaks and they’ll start digging up midfielders who retired before I was born. But this is what people should appreciate about him. Some midfielders control matches by making 120 passes. Some control them by deciding four or five moments. Jude can spend ten minutes looking almost quiet and then suddenly the scoreboard has changed twice and his name is involved in both. That’s a horrible player to defend against because you never really know what you’re trying to remove from the game. Stop his runs and he’ll create. Stop him creating and he’ll arrive in the box. Push him deeper and he’ll carry it forward himself. So maybe we should stop trying to decide which midfielder from the past Jude Bellingham is. The frightening possibility is that twenty years from now, we’ll be watching some young midfielder have the game of his life… and somebody will say, ‘He’s good. But he’s not Bellingham.’”