Tuchel: Bellingham needs to channel his fire towards opponents

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Thomas Tuchel called Jude Bellingham a ‘special boy’ but said he needs to channel his fire towards opponents rather than officials or his team-mates.

Bellingham thought he scored an equaliser in England’s 3-1 defeat to Senegal on Tuesday, but the goal was disallowed for a handball in the build-up by Levi Colwill.

The 21-year-old was not happy with the decision made following a VAR review, causing frustration toward the referee.

Tuchel insisted that Bellingham is misunderstood by many, including the German’s mother, but the midfielder does need to control his ‘fire’.

Tuchel told Talksport: “I think he brings an edge which we welcome and is needed if we want to achieve big things.

“He has the fire and I don’t want to dim this down. He should play with this kind of fire, but the fire comes with some attributes that can intimidate you, maybe even as a team-mate.

“It needs to be channelled towards the opponent and towards our goal, not to intimidate team-mates or be over-aggressive towards team-mates and officials, but always towards the solution, towards winning.

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“You sometimes see the explosion towards referees and the anger in his game. If he can channel this in the right way, and we can help him with this, then for sure he has the something we need and a certain edge that is hard to find.

“I see it can bring mixed emotions. I see this with my parents, with my mum, that she sometimes cannot see the nice, well-educated, well-behaved guy that I see.

“If he smiles, he wins everyone. But sometimes you see the rage, the hunger and the fire and it comes out in a way that can be a bit repulsive, for example, for my mother when she sits in front of the TV. I see that but, in general, we are very happy to have him. He’s a special boy.”