Jude Bellingham has hailed Liverpool as the "best-performing team in Europe" after the Reds saw off his Real Madrid side on Wednesday.
Goals from Alexis Mac Allister and Cody Gakpo steered Liverpool to a fifth consecutive victory in the Champions League, while Madrid's difficult start to the campaign continued as they dropped all the way down to 24th in the standings.
Bellingham did not shy away from praising Liverpool after the game, admitting Arne Slot's side were simply too good for Madrid.
"They were more up for it than us to be honest," he told TNT Sports. "It's a bad result against the best-performing team in Europe. It's no disgrace to come here and lose but we are disappointed in the way how we performed.
Jude Bellingham, Virgil van Dijk
Bellingham heaped praise on Liverpool / Justin Setterfield/GettyImages
"From the first minute, they took control of the game. We never really maximised the spells we had in possession. When we got the ball back we tried to force a counter-attack a few too many times.
"We turned it over so much that they managed to keep control. Defensively they kept us in a place where we couldn't really harm them as much."
Liverpool were heavily linked with a move for Bellingham before his switch to Madrid in the summer of 2023, only to pull out of the race leading up to the transfer window when it became clear they could not compete with Los Blancos' offer.
Bellingham himself recently confessed that a switch to Anfield was "not as close" as many claimed at the time.
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