ERNEST

I respect Jude Bellingham so much. What he’s done isn’t what many English players do and succeed at. He moved away from England at 17, to join a very big European club. He’d only signed his first professional contract with Birmingham and left less than a month later to join Borussia Dortmund. For English footballers, moving abroad at all is not something many of them fancy. But he didn’t just move abroad at that age, he joined a pressure-intensive club and he shone. As if that wasn’t enough, he pulled another big move to join the most pressure-laden environment in European football and he shone again. It’s easy to forget that he’s only 23, and he has achieved so much already. He’ll always have my respect. It’s not easy for a club to retire a 17-year-old player’s jersey. His brother is standing on the shoulders of a giant.