What is the real position of the tidal bulge? The wikipage on &quot;tidal accelaeration&quot; has this picture of the tidal bulge:

but says that:

The average tidal bulge is synchronized with the Moon's orbit, and
Earth rotates under this tidal bulge in just over a day. However,
Earth's rotation drags the position of the tidal bulge ahead of the
position directly under the Moon. As a consequence, there exists a
substantial amount of mass in the bulge that is offset from the line

On the other hand, this academical article
states the opposite:

as we move with respect to both tidal bulge and moon, the moon
crosses our meridian before we experience the highest tide.] How
early? Some books show misleading diagrams with the symmetry axis of
the tidal bulges making an angle of 30° or more with the moon. In
fact, the angle is only 3°, so the tides are late by about 24(3/360)60
= 12 minutes

through the centers of Earth and the Moon


Can you say what is the real position of the bulge? it is surely a hard fact not open to interpretations. Do you have access to sites that say where is now the moon and where is the tidal bulge?
According to the basic laws of conservation of momentum and energy, a mass moving to a greater radius should be slowed downm and if we add friction the lag of 12 minutes or more makes sense. If the highest point of the bulge is forward wrt to the vertical of the moon, can you explain what stronger force pushes the water in the direction of the spin?
I found this site that gives the position of sun and moon, but doesn't show tides

This animation, on the other hand, shows that there is no bulge
The red areas experience a rise over 1 m, the blue one a depression of over 1 m:
There is no great contradiction. The offset of the tidal bulge is about 3 degrees. It is exaggerated in diagrams for clarity. The diagram is correct, but not to scale.

This causes the tides to be slightly late. Imagine a person standing on the Earth of the diagram, with the moon directly overhead. The tidal bulge is on their left. The rotation of the Earth will take them towards the left (the moon is also orbiting but its motion is much slower), so a little later (12 min later) they will reach the maximum of the tide. The maximum is delayed by about 12 min.

Actual flows of water around the coast are driven by this tidal bulge, but are complex effects of local topography. The actual flows of water are highly non-linear, including multiple locations at which there is no tide.