Part 2 : Is Jude Bellingham Being Overworked At Real Madrid?

When Jude Bellingham shifts to LMF, Rodrygo is typically tasked with the RMF role. Federico Valverde(if he’s playing) then adjusts his positioning to cover central transitions or support the right side, depending on opposition shape. The midfield line becomes functional, but asymmetrical.

Bellingham’s role in this structure is the most demanding. He must defend the entire left channel, press wide, track runners, tuck inside to protect the half-space, and still be available for central progression when possession is regained. This is not a passive wide role, it is a hybrid of winger, central midfielder, and auxiliary full-back.

The cost is positional depth. Starting wider and deeper increases the distance to goal and delays attacking involvement. Even when transitions succeed, Bellingham often arrives late into the attacking shape, not by tactical intent, but by physical necessity.

The system gains defensive coverage, but loses continuity between defensive and attacking phases.
When Bellingham does advance, he encounters a different constraint: spatial congestion. Madrid’s attack is heavily weighted toward the left half-space. Vinícius drifts inside. Mbappé moves across from central areas. The ball follows that gravity.

Bellingham’s attacking movement naturally targets the same channel. The difference lies in hierarchy. When space becomes limited, he is the one who adjusts. His runs are delayed, redirected, or abandoned to maintain spacing for the forwards.

This does not remove him from play, but it alters his function. He becomes a facilitator rather than a finisher. The late, untracked box arrival that defined his 2023/24 season depends on open lanes and forward momentum. Both are compromised by congestion.

The decline in his goal output is not a mystery of confidence or form. It is a structural outcome of how space is allocated.

Arda Güler’s role further compresses Bellingham’s attacking freedom. As a natural creator between the lines, Güler occupies zones Bellingham once attacked. To preserve balance, Madrid often shifts into shapes that require a deeper midfield base.

In these configurations, Bellingham is typically the player repositioned. Even when Guler is playing as a deep-lying playmaker, Jude still drops into a stabilizing role alongside Tchouaméni or Valverde. His task becomes connective and defensive rather than penetrative, in order to cover for Guler’s defensive inadequacies.

This is not a critique of Güler’s inclusion. It is an observation about how balance is achieved. Rather than redistributing responsibility across the unit, the system concentrates it. Bellingham becomes the anchor that allows others freedom.

Over time, this consolidation reduces his attacking impact without reducing his workload.

The cumulative effect of these roles produces one of the most demanding physical profiles in the squad. Bellingham’s workload is not defined solely by distance covered, but by intensity. He combines pressing, wide recovery runs, aerial duels, ball carries, and late attacking sprints within the same match.

This type of load is sustainable only temporarily. Fatigue here is gradual and compounding. It appears as reduced sharpness, delayed reactions, and diminished explosiveness rather than immediate breakdown.

The visible management measures, strapping, modified recovery, selective rotation, suggest awareness of the strain. The concern is not a single injury, but the erosion of peak effectiveness over time.
The central issue is not Jude Bellingham’s usage in any single phase. It is the assumption that his versatility can absorb multiple structural shortcomings simultaneously.

He is not misused because he lacks discipline elsewhere. He is misused because the system treats his adaptability as a solution rather than a resource to be optimized. Over time, this transforms a multifunctional midfielder into a permanent stabilizer.

That is not failure. It is inefficiency.

Without redistributing responsibility and re-centering his role, Madrid risks turning one of football’s most complete midfielders into a mechanism for masking imbalance rather than exploiting advantage.
Jude Bellingham’s current role at Real Madrid is not the result of poor decision-making or tactical ignorance.

It is the logical outcome of a system attempting to balance competing priorities without fundamentally redesigning its structure. In the absence of a Kroos-like controller, with a forward line optimized for attacking output rather than defensive contribution, and with multiple creators competing for the same spaces, responsibility has been concentrated rather than redistributed.

Bellingham has absorbed that responsibility because he can. He supports build-up when it falters, covers wide areas when defensive shape stretches, stabilizes midfield transitions, and still contributes in the attacking third. His versatility allows Madrid to function through instability. But functioning is not the same as optimizing.

The cost of this approach is not immediately catastrophic. It appears gradually, through reduced attacking presence, declining third-phase output, accumulating fatigue, and positional compromises that blunt his most decisive qualities. Bellingham has not become less effective. He has become less specialized, and in elite football, specialization is efficiency.

The central question, then, is not whether Bellingham can continue in this role. It is whether Real Madrid should allow him to. Using an elite midfielder as a permanent compensator masks structural flaws rather than resolving them. Over time, it turns adaptability into a liability.

For Madrid to extract maximum value from one of the most complete midfielders of his generation, the solution is not greater sacrifice, but clearer allocation. Reduce the need for correction, and Bellingham’s strengths re-emerge naturally. Fail to do so, and the team risks spending his prime years solving problems he should never have been tasked to absorb.