Bellingham battle inconsequential for England as two greater avenues emerge in Costa Rica win | OneFootball

“I think this is the first time that Jude [Bellingham] plays with Declan [Rice], Elliot [Anderson] and Harry [Kane], so it will be interesting,” said Thomas Tuchel ahead of kick-off.

But try as we did to find it “interesting” while commentators took vehement, almost contradictory, stances on the performance of the Real Madrid star against Costa Rica in a bid to force a narrative in one direction or another, in truth it was a ‘neither here nor there’ display from Bellingham which shed little light on whether he will start against Croatia or not.

He had the first shot of the game, which was deflected just wide as he sold a little dummy on the edge of the box before cutting inside.

Stephen Warnock insisted it was “really good” before making the first of 427 references to how “sharp” Bellingham looked having evidently decided before kick-off that the 22-year-old would be the protagonist in a brilliant all-round England performance.

“Jude Bellingham again, he is the one hunting everything,” Warnock said a few minutes later on BBC Radio 5 Live. “Harry Kane is applauding him. Bellingham is a machine when he gets going and when he closes players down. He has been the impressive one so far in this game.”

That was roughly one minute before Lee Dixon said on ITV commentary that “we haven’t seen much from Jude Bellingham so far”. Which is it then, lads? The reality was somewhere in the middle ground.

After playing a beautifully weighted defence-splitting through ball to create a golden chance for Noni Madueke, which the Arsenal star contrived to scuff onto the post having dragged the ball expertly past the goalkeeper, Bellingham was next seen playing a far more simple pass behind the winger to slow down a counter-attack at the start of a move which came to nothing when he then overhit a cross.

He was fine. England were fine. But Warnock had made up his mind and wasn’t for moving. By half-time he had convinced himself that England are going to win the World Cup.

“I think it has been really impressive from England,” he said. “Everything that Thomas Tuchel wants them to be. Organised, pressing and full of energy. In wide areas, they have been positive too. Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham have been superb.”

That was before Bellingham’s jinking run in the box led to England being awarded the second-half penalty, which we agree was “absolutely brilliant”, if not quite the confirmation of his place in the XI for Croatia as Warnock clearly wanted it to be.

Roy Keane’s observation that this was a “really useful” run-out for England on the basis of Costa Rica putting in “late challenges” and testing their physicality was far more astute.

Morgan Rogers came on in the second half and missed one very good chance, which will be seen as a negative by the Bellingham champions but an ‘at least he was there to miss it’ positive by Aston Villa fans. It was his shot which was parried into the path of Ollie Watkins by the goalkeeper for the third and final goal of the game.

There will be innumerable reports on this game claiming Bellingham has or hasn’t nailed down his starting spot – quite possibly even numbers of each – but perhaps the key takeaway was that the great battle between Bellingham and Rogers for the No.10 spot may actually be relatively inconsequential for England, in the early stages of the World Cup at least.

Because the game served to clarify England’s two most likely avenues to score goals at the World Cup: wingers hugging their touchlines and, of course, set pieces.

Anthony Gordon boosted his chances of starting ahead of Marcus Rashford by running at poor old Shawn Johnson whenever he got the ball, teeing Declan Rice up for the opening goal on one of several occasions he beat the Costa Rica full-back down the left flank. Dispatching his penalty into the top corner won’t have done him any harm either. Madueke was similarly positive, if not quite as effective on the right.

And while England didn’t score from a set piece, there were clear signs of the dangers Rice in particular can pose through his deliveries. Harry Kane forced a fine save from the Costa Rica goalkeeper from one free-kick and headed a deep corner back across goal which could easily have found a teammate in the six-yard box.

Tuchel has previously insisted that set pieces could decide the World Cup and while work needs to be done on specific plays with a week to go until Croatia, England have the tools to cause the chaos in opposition boxes that has defined the Premier League this season.

The interminable Bellingham-Rogers debate will continue to make headlines before Croatia and beyond, but the very nature of it being such a close call suggests it doesn’t particularly matter.

They’re both brilliant footballers and while we would argue Bellingham needs to be playing in the latter stages as one of few genuinely world-class players in the squad and a guy who has historically puffed his chest out when the going gets tough, in the group stages, in an England team set to play high and wide while banking on set pieces, either will do just fine.