England's assistant manager has suggested "unique" Jude Bellingham will have to leave Borussia Dortmund for the Premier League if he wants to be "challenged every week".
Bellingham is expected to be at the centre of a transfer tug-of-war in the summer after his coming-of-age performances at the World Cup, with Liverpool, Manchester City and Real Madrid thought to be leading the chase for the teenager.
Steve Holland, Gareth Southgate's assistant, believes Bellingham has the mentality of an elite player and will not allow the attention to go to his head.
Holland, who served as assistant to eight managers at Chelsea, says playing in Germany is aiding Bellingham's development but believes the 19-year-old is still able to coast through certain games.
"He’s unique," Holland said. "What makes the top, top ones is the mentality, the self-belief, the confidence, the drive, the ambition every day to push and be competitive.
"There were a few at Chelsea that I felt were always there every time in training - [Ashley] Cole, [Frank] Lampard, [Didier] Drogba, [John] Terry. There were others.
"Players that weren’t super-gifted physically or super-gifted technically, a high level still, but the mental aspect of it took them to a different level of performance. Jude I think has those attributes."
Holland continued: "I think that there has been an evolution physically over the last 12 months. It has taken him to another level.
"I think the Bundesliga, with respect to it, is a good league to develop in as a young player. It’s probably not quite as challenging every week as the Premier League is. You get huge games, he is playing in front of a huge crowd every week with the expectation that brings and he is playing in the Champions League.
"But I would say that the bottom half of the Bundesliga is not quite as good as the bottom half of the Premier League because of the financial clout we have.
"I think he still gets a fair share of games where he is comfortable and he is enjoying playing on the ball and not always on the limit, which for a young player is a good way to develop."
Bellingham scored England's opening goal of the tournament against Iran and was sensational as they set up a World Cup quarter-final against France with a 3-0 win over Senegal on Sunday. The midfielder assisted Jordan Henderson for the opening goal and started the move for the second, scored by Harry Kane.
Holland said: "His impact in this tournament, for a player of his age, is already hugely unusual. I’m always balanced, as Gareth is, with the amount of praise [we give him] because we have seen so many where so much goes wrong because they believe in their publicity when they are young. I don’t think that will happen with Jude.
"He deserves everything he has achieved, his potential is through the roof and, providing he keeps working as he is - and there’s no reason to think that he won’t - for sure he has an incredible career for many years at the absolute highest level.
"There’s only three things that you can do in football: stop goals, make goals, score goals. Jude can do all of those things. And recently, he has begun to score goals which is the bit that makes the biggest players big. It’s a match-winning ability that he is adding to his game."
