
Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham made an intriguing comment after his side’s 2-1 defeat at home to Manchester City in the Champions League last night.
The England international played 90 minutes and set up the opening goal for Rodrygo Goes against Man City, who came from behind to win 2-1 at the Bernabeu.
That made it back-to-back defeats for Real, who have also won just twice in their last eight games in all competitions under struggling manager Xabi Alonso.
Alonso is surely running out of time to turn things around at Madrid, though Sky journalist Patrick Berger has posted on X with an update saying that the Spanish tactician is currently still safe…
??? Xabi Alonso will NOT be sacked for now and will be given the match against Alaves, Real Madrid sources telling us. @SkySportDE
— Patrick Berger (@berger_pj) December 10, 2025
Still, for now it seems sources are only committing to one more game for Alonso, and Bellingham made some interesting comments after last night’s game.
As well as cryptically saying that something had changed after this result, Bellingham also made it clear that the home fans were entitled to boo the team for this performance.
See below for the 22-year-old’s comments to CBS Sports, as quoted by Fabrizio Romano…
? Jude Bellingham: “Today something changed, I can feel that. Now we must understand that we have to improve, all of us”.
“I can understand the ‘boos’, people pay a lot of money to follow us and we play for the best club in the world”, told CBS Sports. pic.twitter.com/SKmClu9iXn
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) December 11, 2025
It’s not yet clear what Bellingham meant by saying that something had changed, but it’s pretty damning that he felt the fans were justified in booing.
This could be taken as Bellingham accepting that he and his teammates have let the supporters down, or it could be a dig at the manager for failing to get more out of them and overseeing another bad result.
Alonso did a hugely impressive job at former club Bayer Leverkusen, establishing himself as one of the most exciting coaches in world football.
However, the 44-year-old is not having the same effect at Real Madrid and perhaps that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.
Even if Alonso did so well at Leverkusen, he remains relatively inexperienced, and the Madrid job is arguably the biggest and most high-pressured in world football.
Alonso also inherited a slightly unbalanced squad that didn’t perform particularly well in their final season under Carlo Ancelotti either.
It could be that Real need a major rebuilding job, but it remains to be seen if they’ll be patient enough to let Alonso be the man to take charge of it.
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