Jude Bellingham: Mourinho's Potential New Lampard at Real Madrid
Steve McManaman believes Jude Bellingham could yet become José Mourinho’s new Frank Lampard at Real Madrid – but only if the system makes room for him in a star‑studded attack already bending around Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior.
Speaking to GOAL on behalf of Disney+ ahead of Mourinho’s La Liga return with Real’s trip to Espanyol on Saturday, the former Madrid midfielder traced Bellingham’s evolution and the tactical puzzle now facing his old club.
Can Bellingham be Mourinho’s Lampard?
Asked if Bellingham can reprise the kind of advanced, goalscoring midfield role Lampard made famous under Mourinho, McManaman pointed back to the Englishman’s first season in Spain.
“I think he did that in his first year didn’t he,” McManaman said, before stressing that the picture has shifted. The season before last Bellingham dropped deeper. Last year, he added, the goals dried up.
The arrival of Mbappé has only complicated the picture. “I think with the introduction of Kylian, his role changed,” McManaman noted. Whether Mourinho now restores Bellingham as a full-blooded attacking midfielder is, in his words, something “we'll have to wait and see”.
From what McManaman has seen, Mourinho appears intent on unleashing a front line of Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior and Yan Diomande. That leaves the key question: is there still room for Bellingham to turn that trio into a front four?
A front four… in La Liga, at least?
McManaman can see it working – at least domestically.
“I think in La Liga, in certain games he'll get away with it, that front four,” he said. In those matches Bellingham will be allowed to surge forward, attack space late and get into scoring positions. That, McManaman stressed, is exactly what Bellingham wants to do. He loves arriving from deep, timing those runs, finishing moves rather than just starting them.
The hope, from his perspective, is obvious: that Mourinho leans into that instinct and lets Bellingham attack. But the former England international kept coming back to the same refrain. “We'll all have to wait and see.”
Mbappé, Vinícius and the battle for the left
If Bellingham is one tactical headache, Mbappé and Vinícius are the other – and perhaps the bigger one.
“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,” McManaman said. The issue is familiar to anyone who watched the World Cup: both superstars gravitate to the left. Both want to receive to feet. Both drift into the same lanes.
“It'll be interesting whose job it is to stay in the centre of the box and stay in the centre of the park,” he added, because both naturally come towards the ball rather than pinning centre-backs.
They are not, as he put it, number nines.
Real have tried to address that profile. McManaman pointed to the signing of young striker Carlos Espi, who has already scored a couple of goals in pre-season and is a more orthodox No.9. He also namechecked Gonzalo Garcia – another traditional centre-forward – who has now moved on to Fulham.
By contrast, Mbappé and Vinícius remain wide forwards by instinct. “For all the goals they've scored, they're not orthodox fox in the box-type stuff,” McManaman said.
So who attacks the crosses?
That leads him back to Bellingham again.
If Mbappé and Vinícius roam, and if Espi is still finding his feet, the responsibility to occupy the box may fall on the England midfielder. “So maybe it will be up to Jude to make that push into the box,” McManaman suggested, hinting at a Lampard-style role where late runs turn him into the de facto finisher.
He is fascinated by how Mourinho will piece it together. “I'm waiting to see what Jose does and what Jose changes and how Jose's going to help them operate,” he said.
One detail especially intrigues him: the supply line from the flanks. With Yan Diomande whipping balls into the area, someone has to be 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,” McManaman asked, pointing out that Mbappé and Vinícius “are not prolific in the air”.
That, for him, is the crux of Real Madrid’s new Mourinho era. Not just how the big names coexist, but who finally owns the space in the middle – and whether Jude Bellingham becomes the man who turns all that talent into goals.
