Jermaine Pennant Hits Out at Jude Bellingham Criticism in Furious Defence of the Real Madrid Star 🤬

People look at Jude Bellingham and say, where are the numbers? But they're not watching the game. They didn't watch Real Madrid yesterday and see that Jude Bellingham was very, very good. They just saw that Real Madrid scored five goals and Jude Bellingham didn't score. And he had a chance when he hit the crossbar and he hasn't scored as many goals as he did last season. Last season was an anomaly. What Jude Bellingham did last season should go down in the annals of British football history. He went to the best team in the world and was their best player straight away. Some of that season was as a teenager. So what he did there was very, very special. And granted, he didn't have great Euros. But now you see the criticism of Jude Bellingham. Oh, I don't really like the cut of his jib. Oh, I don't really like it. I'm like, this is an Englishman who's gone to Real Madrid and straight away is one of their best performers. Last season scored so many goals, so many important goals. Got the assist in the Champions League final. Scored one of England's greatest ever goals at a major tournament. What is there to criticise? You should just praise these kind of players. You know, let's go into this in a little more detail. Talk about Bellingham and Real Madrid. Just to let you guys know, two results so far in the Champions League. Celtic have gone to Atalanta. They've drawn nil nil. So that's four points from Celtic from their first three games, which I think they'll take when you can see the Dortmund-Atalanta were two of those games. And Bayern Leverkusen drawing 1-1 at Brest. Let's go then into more detail about Bellingham, about Real Madrid. And just finish off that point, Kwaku, if you can, about Jude Bellingham. Is he literally the prime example of he's golden boy, golden boy, Goldenberg. And then as soon as maybe he has a tricky couple of weeks, couple of months, people want to bring him down. You're not happy with that? No. In this country, it's weird. It's kind of sycophantic. You want to see people suffer before we can really praise them and appreciate them. Whereas Jude Bellingham was great at Birmingham. And then he chose to go to Borussia Dortmund. And we've heard the stories, Oli was on stick to football talking about how he was paraded around Manchester United's training ground. They convinced him to try and sign for the club. He said, no, I want guaranteed minutes. Went to Borussia Dortmund, was fantastic there. Again, tucked away so we didn't get to see him as much. So we only got to see the good bits of him when he's popping in Champions League scoring important goals, giving you iconic celebrations. And then rather than entertain and come to a club in England, which again, he could have got any club in the world. He went to the biggest club in the world and made an immediate impact. We should only play praise players like that. When you go to Portugal, despite the fact there are so many things to criticise Cristiano Ronaldo about, and we're not saying that Jude Bellingham is Cristiano Ronaldo, they don't do it. They worship him. And I'm not saying that we have to ignore faults of footballers. We have to ignore when they don't do things well. But I feel like we're looking to critique every minutiae of their game. And it's not right because it doesn't help. And we wonder why when we go to major tournaments, we don't succeed. We wonder why there's so much pressure. We wonder why players don't want to talk to the media. We wonder why rather than coming on Talk Sport or Sky Sports, they're going on podcast to talk because they don't feel comfortable, they don't feel appreciated. And I can understand that to an extent. So with the treatment of players like Jude Bellingham, who is an incredible, world-class player, the fact that he hasn't scored 15 goals already this season shouldn't be a stick to beat with. Jermaine, did you feel that way, being a young footballer at a big football club? Did you feel as if people almost wanted you to fail, waiting for you to fail? I think in life, there's always people who may be looking in wanting you to fail. You know, whether it's the media looking for waiting like sharks, waiting for that moment when you do fail, so they say they've got a deadline. And that's just part of life. But like Quaker said, Jude is a fantastic player. And when I was playing, there are some times when you're not going to be playing 10 out of 10 in tip-top form and scoring every game or assist. We're human, we're going to have bad games. Look at the greats, who's graced this game. They've not played amazing every single game. They've had bad games from time to time. Jude now is dropping a little bit deeper, so he may not score as many as he did last season and get those numbers. But the impact he has on the pitch is still the same. He's still going to be dictating play, he's still going to be creating for others to create to score. So yeah, it's just a bit crazy how you can, you know, criticise a player of such calibre. Dougie, you've watched him a lot this season for Real Madrid. He hasn't scored a goal yet this season. And his critics would say that maybe he has struggled early on this season. Having watched him, how has his form been? And has it been a different Jude Benningham because he's having to play a lot deeper with the arrival of Mbappé? Yeah, he's returned to that Borussia Dortmund role and that role we saw him play in the 2022 World Cup for England, where it's that combative, all-action midfielder, plays with a lot of personality, leadership. But since Kroos's departure, since Mbappé's arrived, it felt like the side has become a little less tidy in kind of every facet of the game. You know, you've got big injuries in that side as well. Danny Carvajal, who was having Ballon d'Or shouts a few months ago on the basis of his performances last season, he's out injured. David Alaba, who brings so much calm and progressive passing at the back, he's out injured as well. And Kroos has obviously departed. So Benningham's playing a lot deeper. Fede Valverde is having to become this more of a passer in midfield. And so far, it hasn't really clicked with Mbappé constantly pulling left into Vinicius Junior's space. And often what Benningham was good at last season was arriving into the box late. And those crosses were often falling at the head of Hoselu, who had knocked them down to Bellingham. Hoselu's been sold to Qatar, which I thought was a bizarre decision, given the fact that they don't really have a sort of natural number nine in any sort of facet. I mean, Mbappé a few years ago was saying that he didn't want to play as the pivot when he was at PSG. He didn't want to play as the central striker. Obviously, his dream move to Real Madrid came about and he jumped at it. It's the move that he always wanted. He was a Ronaldo fan growing up, etc. But it hasn't necessarily clicked for Real in any facet. And it took last night Vinicius Junior suddenly clicking into gear and a few key players really stepping up and Dortmund getting a little bit tired and spaces to open up and Vinicius Junior just taking advantage of that. So I think Bellingham, you know, as as he will do, he's a big name player. He had so much personality in that team. He almost makes himself a target, albeit unfairly, just because of the way he plays the game and the intensity he brings. Yes, he may be slightly dropped off, but it's definitely not any reason to panic. You know, this is a still a top top player. And actually last year, I think Kwaku pointed it out a few minutes ago, his start was almost freakish. I think he scored 15 goals or 14 goals in his first 15, which was a record for any Real Madrid player in history. Better than Cristiano Ronaldo, De Stefano, etc. Puskas, the greats of the game. So he went off like a rocket. He dipped in the start of 2024. Hasn't necessarily recovered in terms of goal scoring, but he's still adding so much to that team. And you write off Jude Bellingham at your peril. Yeah, of course. It's like, I love Jude Bellingham, but he is melodramatic when he's on the pitch. He does, like you say, he does welcome it in terms of the celebration, the gesticulation, the winding up of the opposition. And so that does bring criticism. That does bring the ire of oppositions. But I just feel like in this country, we can do a better job of just maybe shining a light on a player that is generational. When we're hearing shouts that like, I was hearing it last week or a couple of weeks ago that Cole Palmer's on the same level with Coles against Brighton. But Jude Bellingham is one of Real Madrid's best players. This is a Real Madrid that competed for the biggest honours. There's levels to this. There are levels to this and Cole Palmer's a great player. And hopefully he does get there. But Jude Bellingham is on that level. He's been on that level since he was 19. And so let's just pay a player the respect that he deserves. Because again, they're not here for very long. I feel old, right? When I saw Nuri Sahin as manager of Borussia Dortmund last night, I was like, where's the time gone? Before we know it, Jude Bellingham is in his late 20s, early 30s. He's going to be gone. I feel like players don't get appreciated enough. And like you say, we've seen the Man City team team news on screens right now. Erling Haaland is putting up video game numbers and still there's criticism. Roy Keane was on air on a podcast saying that he plays like a League Two player. His build up play was a League Two player. But that in itself is insane. If that's the case, I would be happy to have a League Two player in Liverpool. You know, I welcome it. I'm welcoming League Two all the way. Quite right. In terms of the media and the press over in over in Spain, Dougie, I mean, we know look at sort of the Gareth Bale was weird relationship he had with Real Madrid fans. I mean, that guy won what? Four Champions League there was it? Yeah. And it's, you know, scored some of the most goals, some of the most ridiculous goals. Yeah, it ended up. Don't mention that, please. It ended up. Yeah. Got that. Yeah, that was some buzz quick, wasn't it? Good evening, I'm sure he's not. He's in Newcastle, isn't he still? I think he's third choice there, yeah. Don't want to be third choice in Newcastle, isn't he? But so it's there we talk about how we look at our English players. Also in Spain, though, I mean, how do you think their relationship is with Jude? Is he still sort of very much Golden Boy? I think so. I think so. I think what really helps him in a different way to Bale is Bale never really made any effort whatsoever with the Spanish language, whereas Bellingham by about six months was speaking pretty good Spanish, which was really impressive given the fact that, you know, he was previously learning German before that. I think there was maybe some preparation for the move going on there and he did some lessons, but still massive respect to him. But we think that the media in England is intense about our top six or our top four clubs. In Spain, it's a different story. You know, Real Madrid and Barcelona fill up 80% of every newspaper, at least their sports sections, and sometimes the front pages as well. They look for every minute detail. And if Real Madrid had lost last night, that would have been their second, the first time they'd conceded, or second time, first time, sorry, that they'd lost consecutive group games since 2008 in the Champions League. And you know who would have got the blame for that? It would have been Jude Bellingham and it would have been Kylian Mbappe. And the issue is for Mbappe that he's joined a side that has just won a Champions League that looked, by the end of last year, pretty complete. You know, they lost two of 52 games in all competitions. So the way down for Real Madrid, or the only way really for Real Madrid this year, is down. They won a Champions League and League Double last year and they haven't really clicked at the start of the season. They've got El Clasico at the weekend. They are three points behind Barcelona. And if they lose that, I think it, yeah, Real Madrid's press is pretty brutal. If they lose that, what? I think it could get, I think it could get quite ugly for the next week or so. Yeah, it could really do. Are you talking about the manager? No, not the manager. I think Ancelotti's got enough credit in the, in the bag there. I hope so, wouldn't you? You'd really hope so, for sure. But I think the noise around the Mbappe transfer in particular gets pretty loud. Well, I think a lot of Real Madrid fans, you know, say, we haven't just bought you penalties, we're looking for magic moments. And at the weekend, he did provide an amazing goal against Celta Vigo. Really like the first moment of sort of Mbappe level quality that we've seen so far. But look, even last night, provides the assist for Rudiger, which grabs them back into the game. I think it's far too easy to jump on the back of Kylian Mbappe, who's moved with all that pressure, all that media pressure. Because when you go to a new team, sometimes it's difficult to just fit in to new culture, new teammates, new surroundings, new fans, new atmosphere. Yes, you probably, but it's still, like I said, we're human. It still takes time to really settle and get used to the new style of play. So it's not like he's been there six months. You know, you've got to give him time because at some point it will just click. You're so right. If you think back to the 2014-15 season with MSN, up until about November, December time, they were talking about blowing it up. They were talking about how does it work, does Messi and Neymar and Suarez work in the same team? And then from January onwards, they went on an absolute tear and won the treble. And Luis Enrique found a way to make that team work. I think Ancelotti is still working it out, but he works it out in real time, Ancelotti. And he tries things, he's not scared to try things. And because he's not as demonstrative as other managers, you don't really think of him as a tactician, but he is, he's constantly trying to work things out. And he will work it out because I think in terms of the collection of talent, there's not been many more talented teams in the history of football. I was just looking at their bench last night. I mean, on the bench last night, they had Turemenci, Endrik, Kamavinga, just those three players just in itself on the bench. That just almost feels impossibly fair. You can have three players that good sat on your bench, right? Yeah, the depth is ridiculous. And we talk about the intensity of the newspaper coverage, but there's also a show like El Chiringuito, which is like a 24-hour Real Madrid covered show. On TV? On TV. And they relentlessly talk about Real Madrid every single night. I tell you what, I like my football, but that sounds intense. It's almost like a parody of a football club. I mean, even Xavi, who had obviously grown up and was a one club man, played for Barcelona since the age of, what, 18 until he's, what, 34, said that managing Barcelona took it out of him. Pep Guardiola lasted, what, three, four seasons there. He said it was too much. Like the intensity of playing for an El Clasico club is completely different to anything. I probably only liken it to playing for Man United when they are in a poor period. But even then, I don't think it's at the scale of the El Clasico clubs. I assume that Real Madrid are going to play sort of in the Champions League, playing average football every single game and still win it, right? Yeah, that's the story. Last year in the Champions League, I don't think I saw them play well once, and they still won it, didn't they? Then it's got this knack of just getting the job done and then turning up when it matters. Is that an actual thing? Just a knack? Like, did you just go into certain games at certain moments, knowing the knack's going to get us over the line? Do you know when you win so much, you're used to just winning, it comes, it's like a habit. You don't have to play well, but you'll just win. You just get the job done. And then when you do play well, you see crazy numbers. Like they probably turned up in the last, what, 35 minutes of that game. They probably thought, you know, we need to get going here. And the next minute they scored five goals. So yeah, it is a thing. Like when you're a team, you know, a big, big team, you're used to winning on a regular basis. It comes like second nature. Sometimes you don't be at your best and you will still get the job done. On AM, on DAV, via the TalkSport app and on your smart speaker. TalkSport.