As speculation regarding Jude Bellingham’s future rages on, Jordan Henderson’s latest comments on his England team-mate can be taken one of two ways depending on if your glass is half full or half empty.
“I just want him to be the best player he can be," the Liverpool captain said during the March international break when asked about the teenager’s future. "Of course, if it ended up being Liverpool, that would be amazing. But it’s got to be right for him, and it’s going to be every club you can think of that will want him.
"He has to think about himself and make sure he makes the right decision for his career. But there’s going to be one club that will end up getting him, whether that is now or in a year or two, and it will be a lucky club.”
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So do Henderson’s comments make the prospect of the Reds signing Bellingham more or less likely? On one hand, he admits he would like Liverpool to sign the midfielder, with such a comment setting his club up for a fall if such a transfer fails to materialise.
On the other, he tells Bellingham to do what is right for him when theorising about a plethora of interested clubs, before hinting the 19-year-old might even stay put at Borussia Dortmund.
In truth, we should expect nothing less from the Reds skipper. He is a seasoned professional with plenty of media experience in his 15 years as a professional, after all, and one of the leading voices in the English game.
Behind the scenes he might be in the teenager’s ear in an attempt to convince him Anfield is the place to be, and he might even know where Bellingham wants to be playing his football next season. But publicly he has to hedge his bets, both to protect his international colleague and his club.
With Dortmund losing both Jadon Sancho and Erling Haaland in the last two summer transfer windows, Bellingham is expected to leave the Bundesliga outfit at the end of the season. Liverpool, Man City, and Real Madrid are the sides most heavily-linked with his signature, with it widely agreed that if the Reds were to sign him, he would cost both a club-record and English-record fee comfortably over £100m.
While Man City were able to snap up Haaland for just £51.2m courtesy of a release clause in his Dortmund contract, there is no such luxury with Bellingham. As a result, the Bundesliga club are under no pressure to sell and can demand whatever fee they desire in hope of starting a bidding war.
Yet, at the same time, they don’t actually want to part with the midfielder. The latest reports from Germany suggest that they are putting together a 'secret plan' in an effort to persuade him to stay put for at least another season.
Bild claim Dortmund's sporting director Sebastian Kehl is planning a meeting with both the player and his father Mark, and will offer him an improved new contract in an attempt to encourage him to spurn advances from elsewhere.
The report claims Dortmund would offer Bellingham £13m a season, in a deal which would make him the highest-paid player in the club's history, while a new deal would also include a release clause worth £131m.
Henderson’s own comments on Bellingham’s future and the possibility of him actually moving on in a year or two did at least support the prospect of such a contract being agreed. While it would no doubt be a blow to interested clubs now, that would-be release clause would at least present a clear transfer fee required to land the midfielder’s signature in the future.
Yet despite Dortmund’s efforts, it is still perhaps in Bellingham’s interests to move on this summer. If he desires a switch to the Premier League that is.
Set to turn 20 in June, the midfielder doesn’t currently fulfil the criteria to be classed as an ‘association-trained’ home-grown player for English clubs in UEFA competitions.
Association-trained players are players who were on another club's books in the same association for three years between the ages of 15 and 21. Bellingham would box off two years with Birmingham City before moving to Dortmund as a 17-year-old in July 2020.
As a result, he only has one season left where he can complete that third year with an English club in order to be classed as home-grown.
Admittedly, such a prospect is hardly going to be decisive when it comes to deciding his next move. If Bellingham opts to stay at Borussia Dortmund or move to Real Madrid, so be it.
Meanwhile, losing such a status would hardly scare off the likes of Liverpool and Man City considering how talented the England international is, even if it would potentially make them not as willing to meet such a hefty asking-price.
Regardless, Bellingham’s future, publicly at least, remains wide open with a number of clubs set to fight over his signature. In truth, it’s a credit to the teenager that such talk and speculation has seemingly had no impact on his form whatsoever when it could have been the biggest of distractions.
Conversations will have inevitably been held behind the scenes, be it between Bellingham and Dortmund, Bellingham, Henderson, and Trent Alexander-Arnold, or Real Madrid and the midfielder’s entourage.
As Henderson’s initial comments suggest, the Dortmund star has plenty to consider in the weeks and months ahead. For now, we’ll all just have to wait to see how this long-running saga plays out.
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