Can Jose Mourinho repeat Frank Lampard trick with Jude Bellingham? Real Madrid looking for England star to become one of the world’s best goalscoring midfielders

Quizzed on whether Bellingham can become Lampard Mark II for Mourinho, as he operates in a more advanced playmaking post, McManaman – who was speaking to GOAL courtesy of Disney+, who will be showing Mourinho’s first La Liga game back at the helm on ESPN this Saturday when Real take in a trip to Espanyol – said: “I think he did that in his first year didn’t he, but time will tell because the year before last he dropped a little bit deeper, and last year he struggled for goals.

“I think with the introduction of Kylian, his role changed, but whether Jose will want to play that role this year, we’ll have to wait and see. It seems that he wants to play Kylian, Vini Junior and [Yan] Diomande, and that’s going to be the big point in the end, whether the space is there for Jude to make that front four.

“I think in La Liga, in certain games he’ll get away with it, that front four, and he’ll be driving forward and he’ll certainly score goals Jude because that’s what he wants to do and he loves to attack those avenues arriving late, so let’s hope that happens. But we’ll all have to wait and see.

“I think the biggest conundrum is getting the best out of Kylian and out of Vini Junior and seeing where they both want to play because as we know, and you only have to see the World Cup, both of them like to drift out to the left and both like to stand left, so it’ll be interesting whose job it is to stay in the centre of the box and stay in the centre of the park because both like to come towards the ball.

“They’re both not number nines. I know they bought a young lad, [Carlos] Espi, who scored a couple of goals in pre-season already, he is a number nine and Gonzalo Garcia who’s now at Fulham was a number nine.

“Vini Junior and Kylian are not, for all the goals they’ve scored, they’re not orthodox fox in the box-type stuff. So maybe it will be up to Jude to make that push into the box but I’m waiting to see what Jose does and what Jose changes and how Jose’s going to help them operate because if you’ve got Yan Diomande crossing the ball into the box, who’s going to be there to head them in because you know Kylian and Vini are not prolific in the air? I’m really interested in that side of what Real Madrid are going to do.”