When Jude Bellingham opened the scoring 13 minutes into England’s Euro 2024 opener against Serbia, many started tipping him as an early favourite for the Player of the Tournament award.
The 20-year-old wonderkid arrived in Germany off the back of a stunning first season with Real Madrid, hitting 23 goals and 13 assists in 42 appearances across all competitions to lead Los Blancos to La Liga, Champions League and Supercopa titles.
However, since that powerful header early on in Gelsenkirchen, it’s been a downhill spiral for Bellingham at the Euros. Many were left worried and confused with a particularly anonymous performance in England’s turgid 0-0 draw with Slovenia on Tuesday night.
Bellingham failed to attempt a single shot or create any chances during the match in Cologne (stats via FotMob), despite completing the full 90 minutes. What’s more, the former Dortmund man was successful with just one of his five attempted dribbles, was dispossessed twice and lost seven of his nine contested ground duels.
“Jude Bellingham knows the quality he’s got and he knows it is not the stage that is letting him down because he has stood there in a Real Madrid shirt and won a Champions League,” former England goalkeeper Joe Hart told BBC One after Tuesday’s match.
“It is not quite working and he’s had a quiet couple of games.”
It may have crept up on supporters and manager Gareth Southgate alike, but England head into the Euro 2024 knockout rounds on a terrible run of form.
The Three Lions have now won just two of their last nine matches, starting with a 1-1 draw with North Macedonia during qualifying for this tournament back in November.
During that run, England have lost 1-0 at Wembley to both Brazil and Iceland, while they’ve scored just eight goals in total and have managed more than one goal in a single game on just two occasions — beating Bosnia and Herzegovina 3-0 and drawing 2-2 against Belgium.
The Netherlands are England’s most likely opponents in the round of 16, but they’ll have to improve their attack drastically if they’re to break down a defence containing the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Nathan Ake and Stefan de Vrij.
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