Setting up the scapegoat

England deserve a tide of goodwill, yet somehow Bellingham is still a target

- Jonathan Liew

Sir Alex Ferguson was there. Bryan Robson was there. Eric Cantona was there. The manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær was there, and yet even as these four club legends sold the dream of Manchester United to a 17-year-old from the Midlands, they could sense the elusiveness, the coldness. The nagging suspicion that, like so many defenders Jude Bellingham would later encounter, they too were grasping at pure air.

"He had it planned out," Solskjær would later remember. "He knew what he wanted. X amount of minutes in the first team. The most mature 17-year-old I've ever met in my life." Though five years have passed since Bellingham turned down United for Borussia Dortmund, for me this is still the story that explains him best of all. The origin myth.

And before we talk about Problem Jude, Petulant Jude, Selfish Jude, One Man World Cup Wrecking Ball Jude, let's first discuss Jude the way he deserves to be discussed. Jude, the artist. Jude, the apostate. Jude, the obsessive student of the game who quotes Theodore Roosevelt after a big tournament win. The Jude who scores one of the most memorable goals in England history at Euro 2024, who has played five La Liga clásicos and scored the winning goal in three.

Yet to listen to some of the chat about Bellingham in recent weeks is to be persuaded that all this is somehow incidental. "Of course he's a fantastic player, no doubt about that," pundits and journalists will opine, as if this is the boring bit, the part where the operator reminds you all calls are being recorded, the necessary disclaimer before we get to the juicy stuff. Yes, yes, he's very good at football. Now can we please - please - talk about his attitude.