Manchester City have entered the race for Borussia Dortmund starlet Jude Bellingham and will battle it out with Premier League rivals Liverpool for his signature.
One of Europe’s hottest young talents, Jude Bellingham, 18, has been making waves with Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga and has also broken into the senior England team. The teenage prodigy was a part of the Three Lions squad that reached the Euro 2020 final, making three appearances.
According to the Daily Star, Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp has made Jude Bellingham his No.1 target in what could prove to be a club-record £80 million deal. Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola also views him as a long-term successor for the ageing Fernandinho.
While it is already clear both Liverpool and Manchester City are in the running for the Dortmund midfielder’s signature, no one knows for sure where Bellingham’s destination will be in the future if he decides to leave the Bundesliga club.
Why Liverpool And Not Manchester City Will Be A Better Fit For Jude Bellingham
As far as Manchester City are concerned, Pep Guardiola has a fantastic squad filled with young talents and experienced campaigners. He further boosted his squad in the summer by bringing in Jack Grealish in a club-record £100 million deal from Aston Villa.
The Sky Blues are now seriously pursuing the signature of Jude Bellingham and will do everything possible to land Dortmund’s teenage prodigy, perhaps next summer as Pep Guardiola seeks the Champions League crown that has eluded the club for so long.
Guardiola sees Bellingham as an ideal long-term replacement for Fernandinho and has a clear plan of using him at Manchester City. Fernandinho, 36, signed a one-year contract extension in July that’ll keep him at the club until 2022. So, the City manager is rightly plotting ways to replace the veteran Brazilian at the end of the season.
Liverpool, on the other hand, managed to only reinforce their defensive options by signing Ibrahima Konate from RB Leipzig. They failed in replacing Georginio Wijnaldum over the summer after the Netherlands international ran down his contract at Anfield and joined Paris Saint-Germain on a free transfer.
What’s more, James Milner is in the twilight of his career. Jordan Henderson is 31 and with the Liverpool skipper’s injury-prone history, there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to continue playing at the highest level consistently over the next three seasons.
Jürgen Klopp is believed to be a big admirer of Bellingham’s talents and wants to bring him to Anfield. Bellingham is a versatile player capable of operating in different roles across the midfield but he has shone in a box-to-box role at Dortmund, thus, making him a viable option to fill the void left by Wijnaldum in the Liverpool engine room.
Manchester City have one of the best squads in Europe, and considering how stacked their midfield is at the moment, Bellingham might find it difficult to break into the team even though Guardiola sees him as a successor to Fernandinho.
At Liverpool, Bellingham would walk into Klopp’s starting XI and take their midfield to another level. At this point, Liverpool appears a better fit than Manchester City for Bellingham, who has a bright future ahead of him and is expected to return to England one day or another.