Bellingham ‘put foot through water cooler’ after ‘chasing’ and ‘screeching’ at ref – but no proof exists

Editor F365
Stephanie Frappart checks the monitor as England player Jude Bellingham protests
Was this Jude Bellingham's 'incredible meltdown'?

Jude Bellingham physically assaulted a water cooler and abused the referees with an England teammate ‘forced’ to step in. But there is no proof it happened.

 

Qualified success
England were rotten in a deserved defeat to Senegal on Tuesday evening, the reaction to which was predictably and indeed understandably rather negative.

There are a great many mentions of the 2026 World Cup kicking off exactly a year from now, although some take that theme a little too far.

‘WELL, Thomas Tuchel can surely forget about putting that second star on England’s shirt,’ writes Dave Kidd for The Sun. ‘Just qualifying for America next summer will be a decent achievement on this evidence.’

Perhaps tongue is inserted firmly in cheek there, because Kidd goes on to say:

‘There is no way on Earth the Three Lions are going to win the World Cup with defensive options as poor as these.’

And there is no way on Earth they will try. If England go into the World Cup with Dean Henderson behind Kyle Walker, Trevoh Chalobah, Levi Colwill and Myles Lewis-Skelly as their first-choice defence then Mediawatch will eat an assortment of hats.

‘With no world-class defensive midfielder either, why did Tuchel ever even walk into this job boasting that he intended to win the World Cup?’

Why indeed did a manager paid incredibly handsomely to take over the recent European Championship finalists make it his known target to win a tournament immediately before his contract expires?

England are among the favourites to win the World Cup, and would have been so under Gareth Southgate, Lee Carsley or Avram Grant. Tuchel would have been a fool not to outline it as his express objective.

But Kidd then returns to his initial point:

‘Much more of this and England might not even make the World Cup.’

Well sure. If they just keep losing games they probably won’t qualify. But England are also one of three teams with a perfect record from three games or more and they haven’t even conceded yet, so they will probably make it. What happens when they are there is another matter entirely.

 

Cooler minds prevail
Beyond the justified complaints over the performance and general feeling with England currently, a familiar theme emerges: Jude Bellingham is an angry young man.

He only came on as a substitute in the 71st minute but a disallowed equaliser – and some fair frustration – apparently makes him fair game to focus on.

Ian Ladyman of the Daily Mail writes that ‘supposed golden child of English football’ Bellingham ‘chased a fourth official to the tunnel and then lashed out with his foot at a case of water bottles’.

Can you ‘lash out’ with a foot? Feels wrong.

Jonathan Northcroft of The Times, presumably discussing the same course of events, says the Real Madrid player was seen ‘smashing the ball away, booting a drinks cooler and screeching at an official’.

But then Dom Smith of the Evening Standard tweeted that he ‘has just gone roaring over to the linesman…before angrily kicking a drinks cooler’.

Are ‘screeching’ and ‘roaring’ interchangeable now? Have we missed a memo?

Tum Balogun of the MailOnline says Bellingham ‘lashed a ball into the air after the final whistle’ before ‘chasing down the fourth official’ and ‘taking a swipe at a water cooler’.

Again, can you ‘take a swipe’ with your foot? These are important questions.

MORE ENGLAND REACTION ON F365
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Tom Parsons of the Daily Express website takes things hilariously further in a piece with ‘angry explosion’ in the headline, explaining how Bellingham ‘put his foot through the water cooler’ and ‘then raced over to the assistant referee to complain about the disallowed goal,’ presumably with said water cooler still attached to his sodding foot.

And Parsons teams up with Will Schofield on the Daily Star website, Watergate-style, to report that Bellingham ‘showed true colours with England meltdown’; it’s a wonder he hasn’t broken his silence yet. Or his foot.

Katherine Walsh of The Sun website describes an ‘incredible meltdown’ in which he ‘failed to keep his emotions in check’ and ‘booted a water cooler near the technical area, before racing after the assistant referee’.

Things escalated to such an extent that Harry Kane ‘was ultimately forced to push the former Birmingham player onto the pitch to calm the situation down’.

And, well, look away now. Viewer discretion is advised at this point. You have been warned:

That is the only available footage of this remarkable Bellingham headloss, while there are a handful of images of him (and a great many England teammates) remonstrating with the officials, and one picture of his foot in the vague vicinity of a water cooler.

Mediawatch is not saying that amounts to a grand conspiracy to unfairly paint Bellingham as some sort of madman after an England defeat in which he did not start or do much of note, but it is definitely quite weird.

If someone has been seen ‘chasing’ or ‘racing’ over to ‘screech’ or ‘roar’ at someone in a volume-speaking ‘incredible meltdown’ including them putting their foot ‘through the water cooler’ in front of tens of thousands of people and however many cameras, you would assume there to be a mountain of evidence.

Although this line buried deep in that Sun website story offers hope:

‘Bellingham, however, quickly appeared to calm down and heartwarmingly gifted his shirt to a young fan before heading down the tunnel.’

That is a rapid recovery from an ‘incredible meltdown’.

But it feels like this line from Ladyman in the Daily Mail sums everything up neatly:

‘Bellingham quite simply needs to grow up. He is no leader. Equally, he is the least of England’s problems right now.’

Is it really necessary to feign shock and horror when every time a young, elite and remarkably driven athlete shows some frustration at a setback, particularly when that setback is contentious?

Mediawatch Jude Bellingham

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