9 incredible stats behind Jude Bellingham’s unbelievable start at Real Madrid | OneFootball

The England international scored for a third successive match with his late header against Rafael Benitez’s stubborn Celta. He’s been nothing short of a phenomenon in his short time in the Spanish capital so far and is more than living up to his €103million price tag.

“Bellingham is doing very well, he keeps scoring and contributing to the team,” Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti told reporters in his post-match press conference.

“Goals aren’t his biggest quality but he’s doing well. He is good off the ball, he’s intelligent and his timing is good. He’s got a lot of ability on the edge of the area.”

Here are nine stats that sum up quite how brilliant Bellingham has been for Real Madrid:

– At the time of writing, Bellingham sits top for goals in Europe’s top five leagues in 2023-24 so far, joint with Monaco’s Wissam Ben Yedder. No player has registered more goal contributions.

– Bellingham has now scored as many La Liga goals as Eden Hazard. He’s done so in just three appearances and 261 minutes. Hazard spent four years at the Bernabeu, managing just 54 appearances and 2524 minutes in La Liga after his club-record €115million transfer from Chelsea.

– The 20-year-old has scored in each of his three competitive appearances for Los Blancos. He’s scored 66.66% of all the club’s goals so far this season and had a direct hand in all but one of them – 83%.

– All but one of Bellingham’s goals for Madrid have either put Madrid level or ahead. His goals have directly resulted in Madrid taking five of their nine points so far this season.

– Cristiano Ronaldo is the only other player in Real Madrid’s history that scored on their first three La Liga appearances for the club.

– Bellingham is averaging a goal every 65 minutes and a goal or assist every 52 minutes. It’s a small sample size and surely won’t be sustained, but to put that in context, in Lionel Messi’s best season (2011-12) he averaged a goal or assist every 49 minutes in La Liga, and Ronaldo averaged a goal or assist every 48 minutes in his best La Liga campaign (2014-15). Last season in the Premier League, Erling Haaland averaged a goal every 77 minutes and a goal or assist every 63 minutes.

– His four goals this season have come from just 1.1xG (per FBref), nine attempts and six on target.

– He’s been named as the official Man of the Match in all three of his appearances in La Liga so far this season. He’s also been named as WhoScored‘s Man of the Match in every game, based purely on statistical output.

– Of players to have played over 100 minutes of football in Europe’s top five leagues so far this season, only Brighton’s Solly March (8.80) has a higher WhoScored averaging rating than Bellingham (8.54).