Borussia Dortmund should be feeling the pressure of Jobe Bellingham’s slow start to life in Germany more than he should.

That is the belief of European football journalist Andy Brassell, who revealed the club’s status as the place for elite starlets is at risk.

The Bundesliga giants are renowned across the continent for their role in the development of some of the world’s best young talents.

Dortmund’s iron-clad status for nurturing has seen them rake in over €1 billion (£872m) in outgoing transfers across the past decade.

Robert Lewandowski, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Ilkay Gundogan, Ousmane Dembele, and Jadon Sancho all arrived at the club as relative unknowns but were eventually sold for massive profit.

However, their transfer strategy has evolved in recent times to invest in established youth such as Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham.

The latter’s younger brother, Jobe, looked seemingly destined to be the next player on the conveyor belt after joining this summer.

The 20-year-old held talks with Eintracht Frankfurt before completing a £31m switch to BVB from Sunderland in June.

He started Dortmund’s first two fixtures in the Bundesliga, but has since been relegated to late cameos as a substitute.

Jobe is yet to complete a full 90 minutes for Dortmund, clocking up a total of just 167 minutes in the German top-flight.

“I do think there is a lot of pressure on Dortmund to get this right, because he took a bit of a leap of faith going there,” Brassell exclusively told talkSPORT.com.

“I think it would have been easy to avoid those comparisons and go to another club.

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“We know, for example, Eintracht Frankfurt were really interested in him, just like James McAtee went and had a look around there, really impressed. Eintracht Frankfurt are really good developers of players.

“You could argue, in fact, that Frankfurt are better developers of players than Dortmund now, because we wind back to Jurgen Klopp, and you think of all the players that developed and became stars there.

“Whether it was Mats Hummels, Lewandowski, or Nuri Sahin, it doesn’t necessarily need to be academy products, but young players who sort of got the head and got given a go there.

“Then, if you look more recently, they start going for older, more experienced, more expensive players, signings like [Marcel] Sabitzer, obviously, Pascal Gross is one. The ones that they wouldn’t have made back in the day are pretty clear.

“So there’s a different profile of player they’re going for. Of course, there’ll be people reading this saying, ‘Oh, well, you know, they did develop Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham.’

“I’m sorry, I’m not giving them those, because you’re talking about generational talents.

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“Of course, Dortmund do have a part to play in their story,” European football expert Brassell continued to talkSPORT.

“There’s no doubt about that, because they became more complete players there. And that’s something that speaks for Dortmund and will continue to speak for Dortmund.

“But if we’re talking about them as prolific developers of young players, using players who are generational talents to be indicative of what the club does, I don’t think it’s a fair comparison.

“So what they do with Jobe, and if they get it right, and if he becomes the player that he wants to become and they want him to become, that is something that’s really important for the next lot of players that they try and sign.

“Jude Bellingham is a player with a huge future, who had a choice.

“Maybe if this doesn’t go right, the next one goes, ‘Well, all right, maybe I’ll go to Eintracht Frankfurt. Maybe that’s the place for me to develop.’

“In terms of Dortmund still making itself a finishing school for elite young talent, that this works is really, really important for them.”

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Jobe’s slow start to life at Dortmund

Despite an encouraging start in the Club World Cup, the England U21 star’s gametime in each Bundesliga game has gradually reduced.

Niko Kovac revealed that high competition within his squad is why Jobe has struggled to force his way into the starting line-up.

The Dortmund boss claims that while the younger Bellingham is a ‘very talented player’, he ‘obviously comes from the English second division’.

“You can’t make the mistake of applying too much pressure, despite the name,” Kovac said.

“I think that’s not doing the boy any favours, and the boy isn’t doing himself any favours.”