Jude Bellingham

[HanoiVillan]

3 hours ago, Dodgyknees said:

Plays better when Kane isn't treading on his toes...

Hopefully the next manager is better able to impart the key point that it's actually doing your team-mates a favour to run away from the ball when they're on it, rather than heading straight to it. 

[StanBalaban]

He's 8 days younger than Louie Barry. His ability, maturity and achievements to date are quite simple remarkable.

Also, 21 year old, self made millionaire athlete being perhaps a bit of an arrogant clearing in the woods shouldn't surprise anyone. 

 

[jim]

Dele in his pomp was better imo. 

[villa4europe]

1 hour ago, jim said:

Dele in his pomp was better imo. 

To me dele in his pomp was a stattos wet dream, he was never that good at football, he was good at scoring but he didn't have the passing or various other skills to ever be as good as they made him out to be but more goals at 21 than lampard and Gerrard so he must be class....

With that in mind his best season at spurs was 18 goals in 37 games 

Bellingham just got 19 goals in 28 games for Real Madrid 

It's like saying Gabby in his pomp was better than harry kane 

[Zatman]

2 hours ago, jim said:

Dele in his pomp was better imo. 

Like that time you thought Gerrard was better than Dean Smith

Edited July 19 by Zatman

[Keyblade]

3 hours ago, villa4europe said:

To me dele in his pomp was a stattos wet dream, he was never that good at football, he was good at scoring but he didn't have the passing or various other skills to ever be as good as they made him out to be but more goals at 21 than lampard and Gerrard so he must be class....

With that in mind his best season at spurs was 18 goals in 37 games 

Bellingham just got 19 goals in 28 games for Real Madrid 

It's like saying Gabby in his pomp was better than harry kane 

Dele's first touch in the box was almost Zidane level. In the box he becomes a completely different player, which is why it was funny when managers like Mourinho and Nuno tried to play him deeper 

His awareness and timing of runs into the box were like Lampard. I agree with @jim, 20 year old Dele was better. A stattos wet dream would be Jude, who can't link up play or do most of the stuff an attacking midfielder can but gets the numbers (at least this season).

Slightly off topic, but man that Spurs team under Poch was a joy to watch. Helped me cope with watching us under Sherwood, Garde, Di Matteo and Bruce.

[villa4europe]

Jude Bellingham, who was a key player for Dortmund winning bundesliga player of the year and twice in the bundesliga team of the year as a teenager, won the European golden boy, the IFFHS team of the year three times and best u20 player in the world twice, the FIFPRO world team of the year, la liga player of the season, la liga team of the season, the athletics European player of the year, CL young player of the year and team of the year as he's just won the CL and la liga....

If England had won the euros he'd be getting a balon dor this year

But he's not as good as dele Alli was at this age?

Not sure if this madness is Southgate or c&b specs but it's definitely madness 

[Keyblade]

22 hours ago, villa4europe said:

Jude Bellingham, who was a key player for Dortmund winning bundesliga player of the year and twice in the bundesliga team of the year as a teenager, won the European golden boy, the IFFHS team of the year three times and best u20 player in the world twice, the FIFPRO world team of the year, la liga player of the season, la liga team of the season, the athletics European player of the year, CL young player of the year and team of the year as he's just won the CL and la liga....

If England had won the euros he'd be getting a balon dor this year

But he's not as good as dele Alli was at this age?

Not sure if this madness is Southgate or c&b specs but it's definitely madness 

This has nothing to do with Southgate or Small Heath (I honestly don't even think about them, they're irrelevant to me).

Do you watch football with your eyes or do you let honours lists and stat sheets decide how you judge players? Even on the stat sheet they're almost identical, 18 goals 7 assists in the league vs 19 goals 6 assists in their 20 y/o season.

I gave a bunch of footballing reasons why 20 year old Dele was a better player as an attacking midfielders and you just chucked a bunch of accolades and hypotheticals at me. I can throw them right back, back to back PFA Young Player of the Year awards, PFA Team of the Season, and if Tottenham had won at Chelsea in the "Battle at the Bridge" and won the league could he have won Balon d'Or? Etc etc

Usually in these types of debates I just like to ask the question, if you were a manager and had to pick one player to be in your starting XI (in this case at the 10), who would you pick? For me, as someone who'd hope to play football on the front foot, I'd go with Alli all day for the reasons I stated before. Bellingham's touch, vision, movement and overall football IQ don't compare.

 

[Xela]

I'm not saying Dele was better than Bellingham at 20, but Dele was a top player. Watched a couple of YouTube videos of him earlier and forgot how clinical he was. Exceptionally good finishing as a number 10. 

On 19/07/2024 at 23:21, villa4europe said:

To me dele in his pomp was a stattos wet dream, he was never that good at football, he was good at scoring but he didn't have the passing or various other skills to ever be as good as they made him out to be but more goals at 21 than lampard and Gerrard so he must be class....

With that in mind his best season at spurs was 18 goals in 37 games 

I think you are being a bit harsh on him. He had a fantastic couple of years. Tragic how he dropped off. Has there ever been such a big drop off by anyone like that? I wonder if there is any of that player left? He's battling for a new contract at Everton at the moment. 

[Keyblade]

28 minutes ago, Xela said:

I'm not saying Dele was better than Bellingham at 20, but Dele was a top player. Watched a couple of YouTube videos of him earlier and forgot how clinical he was. Exceptionally good finishing as a number 10. 

I think you are being a bit harsh on him. He had a fantastic couple of years. Tragic how he dropped off. Has there ever been such a big drop off by anyone like that? I wonder if there is any of that player left? He's battling for a new contract at Everton at the moment. 

I hate this term but I honestly I think it's recency bias. It wasn't even that long ago (actually it's kind of disturbing that it's almost 10 years ago now), but we're quick to forget how highly rated Dele was between 2015-17. He had the world at his feet. But knowing what we know now about how his career went and the fact that Bellingham as it stands is still at the peak of that mountain it's easy to say one is better than the other. I'm not so sure it's that simple.

[villa4europe]

Like I said Bellingham was probably a euro away from the balon dor 

Instead he'll finish 2nd or 3rd

Worst case, he's going to be voted the 3rd best player in the world, having just won the CL and la liga, in which he won the best player in the league, the year after he won the best player in the German league

It's not my opinion that Bellingham is class...thinking Dele Alli was anywhere near that level is just because we all see more of Alli in the PL, it's either based on watching a shit England team people don't realise how good he is or because of them lot down the road people don't want to realise how good he is 

It's a crazy conversation in my head, Alli was nowhere near this level, Dortmund's Bellingham 2 years ago was as good as Alli 

[VillaJ100]

1 hour ago, Xela said:

I'm not saying Dele was better than Bellingham at 20, but Dele was a top player. Watched a couple of YouTube videos of him earlier and forgot how clinical he was. Exceptionally good finishing as a number 10. 

I think you are being a bit harsh on him. He had a fantastic couple of years. Tragic how he dropped off. Has there ever been such a big drop off by anyone like that? I wonder if there is any of that player left? He's battling for a new contract at Everton at the moment. 

Nowhere near the same standard but David Bentley went from being David Beckham's replacement for England to retired before 30

Edited July 21 by VillaJ100

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, villa4europe said:

Like I said Bellingham was probably a euro away from the balon dor 

Instead he'll finish 2nd or 3rd

Worst case, he's going to be voted the 3rd best player in the world, having just won the CL and la liga, in which he won the best player in the league, the year after he won the best player in the German league

It's not my opinion that Bellingham is class...thinking Dele Alli was anywhere near that level is just because we all see more of Alli in the PL, it's either based on watching a shit England team people don't realise how good he is or because of them lot down the road people don't want to realise how good he is 

It's a crazy conversation in my head, Alli was nowhere near this level, Dortmund's Bellingham 2 years ago was as good as Alli 

What you're talking about is how other people rate him, in 2024 with a completely different context. Vinicius Jr is also in that conversation to win Balon d'Or. Is a 24 y/o Vini Jr better than say, a 24 year old Eden Hazard who never even came close to winning one? See what I mean? Comparing accolades isn't really helpful until after retirement imo.

Forget about how other people rate him, how do you rate him? Pound for pound, both players at 20 years old, remove the context of how their careers have panned out, how do you rate them as players?

[Zatman]

No comparison. Bellingham is miles better than Alli at his age. I find this discussion completely absurd

Bellingham is probably going to be Englands best ever player and has shone for Real Madrid not some wannabee contender like Spurs. Dele Alli always looked like he had a ceiling as a player compared to Bellingham

 

[Keyblade]

All the arguments in favour of Bellingham are just "he's better bro because reasons" or what essentially amounts to Real Madrid tax.

I'm not even against the idea that he's a better player, or that he will be very soon (that I believe), but what's absurd is treating this comparison like it's completely outlandish when it's not.

[villa4europe]

15 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

What you're talking about is how other people rate him, in 2024 with a completely different context. Vinicius Jr is also in that conversation to win Balon d'Or. Is a 24 y/o Vini Jr better than say, a 24 year old Eden Hazard who never even came close to winning one? See what I mean? Comparing accolades isn't really helpful until after retirement imo.

Forget about how other people rate him, how do you rate him? Pound for pound, both players at 20 years old, remove the context of how their careers have panned out, how do you rate them as players?

Bellingham is better 

I think he's got more versatility and more strings to his bow, I also think probably because he left so young that he's got something really rare in that he's a PL mentality in terms of his strength and determination but he's honed around being able to play European football which is a skill that the vast majority of top English PL players didn't have, Gerrard got example was a brilliant PL player but the idea in the 00s that he would walk in to any team in the world simply isn't true because the rest of the world play a different brand of football to us, Bellingham doesn't have that, he could genuinely play for anyone and stand out

Alli in comparison from my memory was a PL player, he was speed of thought and timing, he was drift in to the box anticipate exactly where he needed to be one or two touches goal, lightning in a bottle, he wasn't ever give him 60+ touches of a ball and watch him play every pass in the book, his passing and general footballing ability wasn't that good, his goalscoring was excellent I won't take that away from him but even like Gerrard lampard scholes etc they could all pass a ball better than Alli ever could - I think come the end Bellingham will be regarded better than all of them 

[villa4europe]

4 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

All the arguments in favour of Bellingham are just "he's better bro because reasons" or what essentially amounts to Real Madrid tax.

I'm not even against the idea that he's a better player, or that he will be very soon (that I believe), but what's absurd is treating this comparison like it's completely outlandish when it's not.

I haven't event watched him that much for Madrid, my opinion of him is based largely on Dortmund 

[Keyblade]

8 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Bellingham is better 

I think he's got more versatility and more strings to his bow, I also think probably because he left so young that he's got something really rare in that he's a PL mentality in terms of his strength and determination but he's honed around being able to play European football which is a skill that the vast majority of top English PL players didn't have, Gerrard got example was a brilliant PL player but the idea in the 00s that he would walk in to any team in the world simply isn't true because the rest of the world play a different brand of football to us, Bellingham doesn't have that, he could genuinely play for anyone and stand out

Alli in comparison from my memory was a PL player, he was speed of thought and timing, he was drift in to the box anticipate exactly where he needed to be one or two touches goal, lightning in a bottle, he wasn't ever give him 60+ touches of a ball and watch him play every pass in the book, his passing and general footballing ability wasn't that good, his goalscoring was excellent I won't take that away from him but even like Gerrard lampard scholes etc they could all pass a ball better than Alli ever could - I think come the end Bellingham will be regarded better than all of them 

Fair enough, I agree with most of this. To be fair though, Gerrard and Lampard played deeper which put more emphasis on their passing, and in turn exposed it imo. I wonder if Gerrard had played his entire career as a second striker like he did under Benitez if we'd be talking about him differently.

Alli's passing was very limited for sure, but as a SS (which Bellingham is shoehorned into, more tactfully by Ancelotti of course and less so by Southgate), I don't think Bellingham's passing gives him that much of an advantage (it's also not great for an advanced midfielder). But what Alli had was a great first touch and awareness in the box that made all of that moot (man, Unai would have loved him, he's the ultimate "minimize his weaknesses and maximise his strengths type player), especially with Eriksen taking charge of passing duties. The little flicks around the box etc, it's something that Bellingham doesn't have. 

I'm interested to see if he continues his goal scoring run next season, or if this was a flash in the pan. He pretty much tripled his Dortmund output in one season which is crazy.

[Zatman]

19 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

All the arguments in favour of Bellingham are just "he's better bro because reasons" or what essentially amounts to Real Madrid tax.

I'm not even against the idea that he's a better player, or that he will be very soon (that I believe), but what's absurd is treating this comparison like it's completely outlandish when it's not.

Well if wants stats then At same age Bellingham has already scored more top flight goals plus more goals for England and has more goals in Europe than Alli ever got not to mention an actual trophy cabinet

Is genuinely no comparison between them. 

[Keyblade]

10 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Well if wants stats then At same age Bellingham has already scored more top flight goals plus more goals for England and has more goals in Europe than Alli ever got not to mention an actual trophy cabinet

Is genuinely no comparison between them. 

More goals and team accomplishments = better player, got it. 

But for comparison, the top flight stats at 20 years old are:

Bellingham: 31 goals 21 assists in 4 seasons

Alli: 28 goals 16 assists in 2 seasons

I guess the former is more impressive because the numbers are bigger.