JUDE BELLINGHAM told England fans to “stick with us and we’ll deliver”.
The Three Lions teenager, on the verge of a £115million move to Real Madrid, is absolutely convinced Gareth Southgate’s side will win a trophy.
England play a Euro 2024 qualifier in Malta on Friday having won their first two group games against Italy and Ukraine.
Bellingham, 19, who will not feature due to a knee injury, said: “The truth is that we are delivering.
“We’d like to deliver a trophy and a tournament win, of course, but there’s steps to doing that.
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“England fans can feel it themselves. They’re ambitious but they’re not stupid.
“There’s a reason for the kind of expectation and the hype around the team at the minute.
“A lot of the great international teams in the past didn’t win straight away. They had to build for years before they managed to get over the line.
“I think that there’s something similar happening with this England team now.
“I wouldn’t say patience is the word — but just stick with us because we’ll deliver.”
England reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup in Qatar, lost in the final of Euro 2020 on penalties to Italy and were beaten in the last four of the 2018 World Cup by Croatia.
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Bellingham, who has spent the last three years at Borussia Dortmund, was still in the England youth set-up when the senior team won 4-0 in Malta in a 2017 World Cup qualifier.
Southgate’s team were jeered off the pitch at half-time with the scores locked at 0-0 — and the players on the bus were abused by angry fans after the match.
Midfielder Bellingham has been at St George’s Park this week for treatment on the knee problem which ruled him out of the home qualifier against North Macedonia in Manchester on Monday.
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The former Birmingham player said: “We’ve got to attack the qualifiers with the same mentality as we attack major tournaments.
“The last three (tournaments), I’d say, we’ve been pretty successful.
TOE TO TOE
The last one was a bit disappointing but we probably played a harder opponent than the previous ones.
“The way we went out was disappointing but you take confidence in the fact that you can go toe to toe with one of the better teams in Europe.
“It stands you in good stead when you know there’s not many teams on paper — you’d like to think — that are better than us.
“So, you take that confidence and you take the experience that we’ve gained from the last few.
“The goal is always to try to win it. That should be the goal for all of us going into it and that’s what we’ll try to do.”
Meanwhile, there are still a few tickets available for Monday’s game with North Macedonia at Old Trafford.
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