Jude Bellingham has grabbed a lot of headlines during his time with England in the 2024 European Championship.
After scoring the winning goal in England’s opening game of the tournament against Serbia, the midfielder scored a vital overhead kick that helped keep the Three Lions in the competition against Slovakia.
Despite that, one of the three Manchester City players in Gareth Southgate’s squad has found himself being praised for his performances by a pundit who has suggested he has even outperformed Bellingham.
Stuart Pearce says Phil Foden has outperformed Jude Bellingham at Euro 2024
When reflecting on England’s tournament so far in a recent video shared on the talkSPORT YouTube channel, Stuart Pearce had this to say about the performances of Bellingham and Phil Foden.
He said: “Personally, over the four games, I think performance-wise, I think that Foden’s performances have been stronger than Jude’s.
“People would look at me and say, ‘You are crazy, he won us one of the games, he kept us in the tournament with his goals’, and I grant that his goals have been brilliant and you loathe to take players out of the team that can score a goal at the drop of a hat like that, and by the way, two of the best goals you will ever see in tournament football that he has delivered for us.
“I am not going to underestimate that, so you are not going to take Jude out of the team, but I think it would be harsh on Phil Foden to be left out of the starting lineup as well because I think he is improving game on game and we think on what we have been [seeing from him] for Manchester City, he can get us to the final and win us the tournament on his day.”
Foden vs Bellingham
Even though Bellingham has scored half of England’s goal in the tournament so far, Foden has had more shots at goal (8 vs 3) than him and racked up more shot-creating actions (12 vs 10).
Considering how the City star, who Chris Sutton recently said was the best performer in the Premier League last season, has been playing a left-wing role in the tournament, the fact that Pearce thinks he’s been outperforming Bellingham in a role he’s not completely suited to just goes to show how impressive he can be anywhere on the pitch.
