Despite his improved scoring efforts in his final season with Dortmund, few could have anticipated how prolific Bellingham would be for Real Madrid this season.

Since signing for Los Blancos in an £88.5m deal last summer, the England superstar has scored 23 goals in 41 games. He is the third highest scorer in La Liga, with 19 goals – more than Robert Lewandowski, Antoine Griezmann and Alvaro Morata.

Bellingham’s average of 0.77 goals per 90 this season is a vast improvement on his previous high mark with Dortmund of 0.27. His expected goals per 90 average of 0.45 is a jump up from 0.27 in his final Bundesliga campaign.

“He hinted at that at Dortmund because they pushed him into more of an advanced role as time went by,” European football expert Andy Brassell says of Bellingham’s superlative scoring record in Spain. “But to score goals in that sort of volume was probably something even he wasn’t expecting.

“The positioning is definitely important. He plays as a number 10 or sometimes even higher for Madrid. They’ve been playing without an orthodox striker sometimes, tucking him in behind two ‘strikers’ in Rodrygo and Vinicius Jr, who are inclined to go wide, thus creating central space for him.”

If there is any criticism of Bellingham’s performances for Madrid this term, it is that his scoring has dipped somewhat since the turn of the year, with just six goals so far in 2024, and he hasn’t made as great an impact as expected in the biggest Champions League games. But Brassell believes these experiences will aid his long-term progression.

“It’s something that Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo went through, being questioned – could they consistently do it in the biggest games?” he says.

“Bellingham is going through that at the moment and I think wise people will look back on this time and realise it helped build him and make him even more resilient, helped him work out how to deal with being a key player and a marked man.”

Whether his scoring feats continue or whether he settles back into a deeper midfield role upon Kylian Mbappe’s expected arrival next season, Bellingham has already established himself as an icon at the Bernabeu and bedrock of any success Madrid will enjoy in the near future.

“His mentality to be the best is what will keep driving him,” adds Robinson. “He will want to be the best player in the world.”