Jose Mourinho told Jude Bellingham can score as many as Frank Lampard in new-look Real Madrid

Jose Mourinho has been told that making the most out of Jude Bellingham is an issue that requires immediate work at Real Madrid.

The Special One has agreed a two-year contract to return to Los Blancos 13 years on from his first spell in charge at the Bernabeu.

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Mourinho took charge of his final Benfica game last Saturday, where a 3-1 win at Estoril Praia completed an unbeaten season for his side.

However, the Portuguese giants finished third in the table – eight points behind champions Porto – despite an invincible campaign.

His remit at Madrid will again be to wrestle LaLiga away from Barcelona, as he did when Pep Guardiola was in the opposite dugout.

How Real Madrid under Mourinho may look

European football expert Andy Brassell told talkSPORT.com: “The first time they got Mourinho in, it was a mission of: ‘We can’t be as sexy as Barcelona, let’s make it really difficult and unpleasant for them.’ Maybe they’re hoping to do that all over again.

“I think a notable thing in the nuance that maybe hasn’t been grasped of Benfica under Mourinho, which has not been an unequivocally successful season, but a season with high points and a season with good moments, is that he’s actually given quite a lot of freedom to his attacking players.

“Now, of course, this is different in the context of the Portuguese league, but not that different because we know that Real Madrid have incredible financial power and squad depth compared to most of the rest of LaLiga.

“We saw that the first time he was there as well.

“His reputation as being really defensive mainly came from the big games in European competition.

“He would let his attacking players do what they liked in LaLiga on many occasions. Real Madrid and Mourinho scored a lot of goals in LaLiga, so there’s no reason to presume that that couldn’t happen all over again.”

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Bellingham can be Mourinho’s new Lampard

Brassell added that making the most out of Bellingham is an absolutely key question for Mourinho’s new-look Madrid team.

The 63-year-old has long since been a fan of the England international, following their memorable interaction after the 2024 Champions League final at Wembley.

But two years on from his record-breaking first season in Madrid, Bellingham is in need of a refresh after a turbulent campaign.

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Shoulder surgery last summer meant the 22-year-old didn’t start a game until the end of September after missing all of pre-season.

A hamstring injury in February sidelined Bellingham for another two months, with Madrid also chopping and changing managers.

On the pitch, Bellingham has struggled to carve out a defined role under Arbeloa and has scored just five goals in 27 LaLiga appearances.

Yet the former Borussia Dortmund midfielder already has the perfect blueprint in Mourinho’s development of Frank Lampard for how he can restore his status as one of the best No. 10s in world football.

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Bellingham has ‘superior technical palette to Lampard’

“How they find the attacking balance is very interesting,” Brassell continued. “To me, how they make the most out of Bellingham is an absolutely key question for that team.

“Everyone’s going to be talking about [Kylian] Mbappe and Vinicius [Junior], as they always do. Everyone’s talked from the minute Mbappe arrived about maybe those two eating each other’s space.

“I think we have to look at both of them. How they eat Jude Bellingham‘s space is a big issue for Real Madrid.

“That is something for Mourinho to sort out.

“I wonder if we go back again to an earlier spell in Mourinho’s working career and say, could Bellingham do a similar thing to what Frank Lampard did for Chelsea when Mourinho was there? That wouldn’t surprise me at all.

“To have his goal-scoring midfielder, who I think it’s fair to say has, with every bit of respect for Frank Lampard as a player, Bellingham has a superior technical palette. There’s no doubt about that.

“And he’s got the potential to score as many goals. We saw that in the first season at Real Madrid.”

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Lampard ironically revealed years ago that he tried to sign Bellingham as a player during his first stint in charge of Chelsea.

The now-Coventry City boss was priced out of a move, with Bellingham ultimately joining Madrid for an initial £88.5m in 2023.

The Birmingham City academy graduate scored 19 times in the league during his debut Spanish campaign with 23 goals overall.

That decreased to just 14 across all competitions last season, despite making 10 more appearances, following the arrival of Mbappe.

Bellingham’s increasingly deeper role, which has even seen him shunted at left-midfield, has yielded just five LaLiga strikes this year.