Bellingham Is The Only England Player Performing Well – Gary Neville

Manchester United legend Gary Neville has delivered a scathing assessment of England’s World Cup displays. He recently criticized the players despite the Three Lions securing their place in the round of 32 by topping Group L.

Insisting that Jude Bellingham is the only member of Thomas Tuchel’s squad currently performing at the expected level, Neville stated that the rest of the team must drastically improve to avoid a premature exit in the knockout stages.

Stressing that Panama kept breaching England’s backline too easily, Gary warned that the stronger nations at the World Cup will be more clinical with their chances

His words, “Absolutely, [Bellingham is England’s best player]. He’s the one player who looks like he’s in form, he’s the one player who looks like he’s fresh.

He’s sharp, he’s lively, he’s played at the level you would expect. These players have set a standard getting to finals and semi-finals over the last few years.

In Thomas Tuchel’s interview he said, ‘we’ll step up in bigger games’, they’re going to have to. I don’t think he’ll be looking at the analysis with his coaching staff and think everything’s perfect now.

We’ve got to get together in the next four days, we’ve got to get Declan Rice back in the team, we’ve got to get the back four more solid, it looked like they [Panama] cut through us a few times, they didn’t have the quality to punish us but they’re going to have to step up.

There are times I’ve been with England where we haven’t got out of the group, there are many times where we’ve not finished top and finished second and ended up with a nightmare run towards the quarter final. It’s probably the most disappointed we’ve ever been with topping the group.

The reason for that is these players have set such a standard over the last few years in terms of tournaments that we’re just thinking we want more from them, we want more from Bellingham, we want more from [Morgan] Rogers, we want more from [Marcus] Rashford, that needs to come now.”

WOW.

Jude Victor William Bellingham (born 29 June 2003) is an English professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for La Liga club Real Madrid and the England national team.

Bellingham joined Birmingham City as an under-8, became the club’s youngest ever first-team player when he made his senior debut in August 2019, at the age of 16 years, 38 days, and played regularly during the 2019–20 season. He joined Borussia Dortmund in July 2020, and in his first appearance became their youngest ever goalscorer. Over three seasons with the club he made 132 appearances, was a member of their 2020–21 DFB-Pokal-winning team, and helped them finish as runners-up in the 2022–23 Bundesliga. He signed for Real Madrid in June 2023.

Jude Victor William Bellingham was born on 29 June 2003 in Stourbridge, in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, the eldest son of Denise and Mark Bellingham. His father Mark was, until 2022, a sergeant in the West Midlands Police, and a prolific goalscorer in non-League football.

Bellingham’s younger brother, Jobe, is also a footballer. Bellingham attended Priory School in Edgbaston, Birmingham.