think your emotions are clouding your judgement. Bellingham was straight up shit and one of the reasons dortmund struggled to control the game against relegation fodder. instead of dropping and helping to maintain passing networks he stayed too high up the field to control the game. next he kept drifting to the wing and was trying to do some Henry moves and dribbles instead of having his head up to pick up a pass. even when sometimes those tricks came of he never looked up to take advantage with a pass and instead tried to dribble again and lost the ball. in some instance when he found himself in the middle he tried to do some one touch flicks that went straight to the opponent. if he paused a looked up he had multiple passing lanes to play a through ball. he went down with every tackle or touch by the defender and kept moaning to the ref throughout the match when no foul was given. during halftime he went to confront the referee rather than rally his team.
he had a couple of flashy moves come off inside the box that is about it as a whole. in short and absolute shite performance and should never be a record fee. he is nowhere near 150mil. he is at best 60mil at his current level. nowhere ready for a team like city. even if you think he will improve it will take atleast 2 more years because he does not even understand the basics of being a midfielder yet. Grealish was ahead in his development, bellingham is just raw skills. before 2 years has passed doubt city fans have patience till then and ready to miss out on trophies until bellingham matures as a player.
Firstly, until a few months ago I couldn't see what all the fuss was about Bellingham, & I was meh about about him coming here, so my judgement of him is cold, factual & based on what I think is best for City.
Since the World Cup I've watched as much of him as I can (including in the CL against City) & I've seen enough to say an emphatic yes.
Bochum closed Bellingham down very quickly using 2-3 players, as they'd probably marked him down pre-match as Dortmund's main danger man.
If Bochum tried that against KDB whilst playing City, Gundog, Rodri, Grealish, Bernardo & Haaland would've ripped em a new arsehole.
That's part of the problem teams face when playing City. Double up on a dangerous player & you leave an equally dangerous player free, hence Arsenal trying to go man-for-man against us on Wednesday.
Another noticeable thing is passing options. City concentrate on always giving the player in possession a couple of options, & as you quite rightly pointed out, when Bochum doubled/trebled up on JB, his team mates didn't offer any assistance, nor any viable passing options never mind the couple or more alternatives our players generally have. This wasn't JB's fault.
The game was a low quality dog fight to the finish for two different reasons, so I fail to understand why this can't be taken into consideration when taking a global view of JB's performance in last night's attritional game.
Yes JB was arguing with the ref & disputing decisions, but so were half the Dortmund team with Emré Can being by far the worst offender. If Jude was at City, he'd have been told beforehand by Pep, or during the game by a senior player, to wind his neck in & concentrate on the game, as you can't do both & remain on plan & be effective.
At Dortmund, Bellingham is the big fish in a little pond, just like Jack was at Villa. Few thought Grealish was value for money at £40m, let alone the £100m we paid, but where's his detractors now? \0/
There's more than a special player in Jude Bellingham. Just imagine what a special manager like Pep could do with him around our squad?
Bellingham's played with Akanji & Haaland at Dortmund, & Walker, Stones, Grealish, Philips & Foden at England level. That's half our team on hand to help him settle in quickly.
If our interest is real & eventually realised, I can see why we'll have pursued him & paid the reputed £130m Dortmund want... )(
