England legend Terry Butcher is completely in line with Mills and believes a player like Jude Bellingham could have brought World Cup glory to the Three Lions when Butcher roamed the English defence.
“Bellingham embraces everything and anything. Someone can have a go at him and he loves it because he's not stupid to get involved. He's quite clever and playing a season at Real Madrid, where you are right in the spotlight has given him now a sort of strength,” the Rangers great told Tribalfootball.com.
“I played with Paul Gascoigne and he was a very similar sort of guy. He was in the spotlight all the time and it's taken a long time for someone to come into that spotlight. Now Bellingham is there and a lot of teams will say, stop Bellingham, and we stop England.
“I watched him when they beat Scotland away a few months ago. Just specifically watched Bellingham and he was just incredible. He was everywhere, he had three or four lungs, I thought, how can he breathe? He just keeps going and going and going. From an English point of view, that's fantastic to see,” says Terry Butcher who played in three World Cups himself.
While failing to reach more than a semifinal, Butcher and teammates suffered some close calls as they went out of the 1982 World Cup without losing. In both ’86 and ’90 England lost to the eventual winner but a player like Bellingham could have tipped the margins in England’s favour, Butcher believes.
“In ‘82, Kevin Keegan wasn't available until the last 20 minutes of the game against Spain. In ‘86, we lost Bryan Robson and Ray Wilkins and in 1990 we didn't do much wrong against Germany, except miss two penalties. We had Gascoigne but he was just starting to come into his really good times. He wasn't the Gascoigne of later times as well.
“We never had a Jude Bellingham or a Paul Gascoigne in full flow, which Bellingham is at the moment. We would have loved that. You look at Maradona in ‘86 in particular, he was inspirational for Argentina to go and win that World Cup. In ‘82, Paolo Rossi was inspirational for Italy. You need a player to step up.
“The only worry about with Bellingham because he's so committed physically is that he can put himself at risk of an injury. England have got players that can come in, but there's only one Jude Bellingham.”
- Terry Butcher was talking to Tribalfootball.com on behalf of Free Bets