Jude Bellingham has admitted it was 'hard' to say no to his England team-mates' after they delivered the sorts of sales pitches that Newcastle United target James Maddison will be only too familiar with.
Bellingham was subject of interest from Liverpool, Man City and Manchester United before the former Borussia Dortmund midfielder ultimately plumped for a switch to Real Madrid this month. Bellingham, in the process, became the first England star to move on this summer at a time when there are question marks surrounding Maddison, Declan Rice, Harry Kane, Harry Maguire and others.
Although Maddison and co will be fully focused on England's upcoming Euro qualifiers against Malta and North Macedonia, this camp also gives these players the chance to pick the brains of potential future team-mates in the final internationals before the transfer window closes. Nick Pope did just that with Kieran Trippier before joining Newcastle last summer and the goalkeeper admitted his colleague 'really sold' the move to him.
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Maddison has previously quipped, himself, how it was 'three on one with the Newcastle boys' during the World Cup following a 'bit of speculation' last summer. Spurs have since entered the race for the Leicester City star and Callum Wilson jokingly captioned a photograph with Maddison on Instagram with the words: 'Newcastle is this way' on Thursday night.
Someone who can relate to having multiple clubs interested is Bellingham and the £88.5m signing was asked at his Real Madrid unveiling if he was under pressure from his countrymen to come to the Premier League rather than move abroad to Spain.
"Obviously, at the World Cup, and the national team camps, it was hard," Bellingham told reporters. "All of them wanted to see me come back to England and play for their teams, which I really appreciate."
The speculation certainly did not affect Bellingham and the same looks to be true of Maddison, who caught the eye, himself, in training footage England released ahead of Friday's game against Malta, which was entitled: 'Madders on fire', after the attacking midfielder scored a number of goals. At one point, Maddison got a 'well done Madders' from Trippier after skipping away from Declan Rice and striking the upright with a superb shot from distance in a small-sided game, with captain Kane knocking in the rebound.
