England’s performances in the international break have done little to quell doubts ahead of the World Cup. One thing at least became clear: Jude Bellingham is good. Even clearer than that? Declan Rice loves Jude Bellingham more than anyone.
“He’s 19 but he’s got the body of a 28-year-old – he’s a man!” Rice gushed after the 3-3 draw with Germany. “He thinks like a man, plays like a man and shows personality and character.”
The West Ham star’s comments wouldn’t feel out of place in the agony aunt section of a tabloid magazine, as if he’s a 55-year-old stay-at-home writing to Deidre to explain the battle to suppress venereal feelings towards the new handyman.
“I don’t think I’ve seen anyone as good as he is for 19. He’s got the whole package.”
Please help Deidre, I can control myself no longer. Sincerely, Declan.
Rice clearly sees more than the glimpses of Bellingham’s brilliance to which we’ve been privvy, having spent time in England training with him, and it’s clear when you watch Rice talking about the teenager that this isn’t bullsh*t; Rice is in awe.
But they’re the sort of patriarchal comments you might expect from Jordan Henderson, not the 23-year-old Rice. Apart from drooling over Bellingham’s “28-year-old body” and those “eyes you could get lost in” (OK, he didn’t say that), Rice also said Bellingham has an “old head”, but it’s Rice who’s talking as though his own testimonial is around the corner.
The Hammers midfielder is aggrandising Bellingham as this generational talent despite being from that same generation, playing in the same position, and potentially being in direct competition for a starting spot for England in the future and for a transfer to one of the top Premier League sides.
“He’s the future of English football for the next 15 years if he wants to be,” Rice added, seemingly unaware, or not caring, that he’s adding more fuel to a transfer fire while the embers of his own still need stoking.
It’s now Bellingham who is the answer to Big Six midfield woes, not Rice. It’s Bellingham linked with £100m-plus transfers, with Rice the fall-back Plan B.
A Telegraph report on Wednesday claimed Chelsea – the club most heavily linked with Rice in the last two years – have ‘gatecrashed the race’ (whatever that means) between Liverpool and Real Madrid for Bellingham, with one sentence of a 400-word story dedicated to Rice, who’s ‘still on the radar’ at…
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