Bellingham's Role in Mourinho's New Real Madrid
Steve McManaman can see the temptation. Jude Bellingham, high up the pitch, timing those late bursts into the box, crashing games open the way Frank Lampard once did for Jose Mourinho at Chelsea. But with Mourinho now back at Real Madrid and Kylian Mbappé arriving as the new attacking reference point, the former Liverpool and Madrid midfielder believes the equation is far more complicated.
Speaking to GOAL on behalf of Disney+ ahead of Mourinho’s La Liga return on ESPN this Saturday at Espanyol, McManaman pointed out that Bellingham has already flirted with that Lampard-style role.
“I think he did that in his first year didn’t he,” McManaman said, before adding a note of caution. The season before last, Bellingham dropped deeper. Last year, he struggled for goals. His positioning and productivity have already shifted once, and they may shift again.
Mbappé’s arrival has redrawn the map.
“I think with the introduction of Kylian, his role changed,” McManaman said of Bellingham, “but whether Jose will want to play that role this year, we'll have to wait and see.”
Right now, Mourinho’s preferred attacking trio appears obvious: Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior and Yan Diomande. That leaves the big tactical question hanging over the Bernabéu: is there room for Bellingham to turn that into a front four?
McManaman thinks there will be games in La Liga where Mourinho can unleash all four.
“In La Liga, in certain games he'll get away with it, that front four,” he said. In those matches, Bellingham will be encouraged to drive forward and attack the box, exactly where he is most dangerous. “He'll certainly score goals Jude because that's what he wants to do and he loves to attack those avenues arriving late.”
The hope, from McManaman’s point of view, is clear: that Bellingham is allowed to keep doing just that. The reality is that Mourinho still has to solve a far trickier puzzle.
The real conundrum, McManaman argues, is not Bellingham. It is how to get the best out of Mbappé and Vinícius at the same time.
“I think the biggest conundrum is getting the best out of Kylian and out of Vini Junior and seeing where they both want to play,” he said. The issue is familiar to anyone who watched the World Cup: both stars naturally gravitate to the left. Both want to receive the ball in similar areas. Both want to drift, not stand still between centre-backs.
“It'll be interesting whose job it is to stay in the centre of the box and stay in the centre of the park because both like to come towards the ball,” McManaman noted.
That is the crux of it. Mbappé and Vinícius are devastating scorers, but neither is a classic number nine.
“They're both not number nines,” McManaman stressed. Real have tried to address that profile, bringing in the young Carlos Espi, who has already scored a couple of goals in pre-season, and previously having Gonzalo Garcia, now at Fulham, as a more traditional striker.
“Vini Junior and Kylian are not, for all the goals they've scored, they're not orthodox fox in the box-type stuff,” he said.
So who attacks the space they leave? Who becomes the penalty-box presence when both wide forwards drift and drive from outside?
“Maybe it will be up to Jude to make that push into the box,” McManaman suggested.
That would bring the Lampard comparison back into sharp focus: Bellingham as the late-arriving midfielder, filling the gaps left by wide forwards who prefer to face the play. It sounds ideal on paper. Mourinho still has to make it work on the pitch.
McManaman’s curiosity extends to the supply line as well. With Yan Diomande whipping crosses into the area, Real need someone consistently on the end of them.
“If you've got Yan Diomande crossing the ball into the box, who's going to be there to head them in,” he asked, before underlining another weakness. “You know Kylian and Vini are not prolific in the air.”
That opens the door again for Bellingham, whose size, timing and aggression in the box could become a vital weapon in Mourinho’s new Madrid.
McManaman is not pretending to have the answers. He is waiting, like everyone else, to see what Mourinho does with this galaxy of attacking talent, which levers he pulls, which star he asks to sacrifice a comfort zone.
“I'm really interested in that side of what Real Madrid are going to do,” he admitted.
The Lampard question will not go away. But in Mourinho’s second life at the Bernabéu, the bigger story might be this: can he fit Mbappé, Vinícius, Diomande and Bellingham into a system that still looks like a Real Madrid team built to win everything?
