There were fears in some quarters that Mason Mount’s new career would possibly strike when Thomas Tuchel replaced Frank Lampard as Chelsea manager at the end of January. After all, Lampard was partially sacked due to the poor form of several key attacking signings, most of the sum of £ 220 million last summer.
Tuchel’s ability to speak German is considered an important asset in improving the fortunes of Timo Werner and Kai Havertz. The latter is only now showing signs of himself as an influential player after a difficult first season in England. Mount was named captain for Lampard’s last game, but he was turned down for Tuchel’s first, a perfect distillation of the challenge the 22-year-old had to prove himself. His rise was influenced in part by the club’s transfer ban, but before his retirement, Lampard was keen to promote the youth, despite years of Chelsea managers ignoring the club’s own academy graduates.
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Still, Mount will make his 100th appearance for the Blues in the coming weeks – possibly as soon as May 1 – after becoming just as vital to Tuchel as to Lampard.
Chelsea reached the Champions League semi-finals on Tuesday with a total victory of 2-1 over Porto, despite losing the second leg 1-0 through an impressive volley from Mehdi Taremi. Their path was finally secured by the 2-0 win last week in the first game in which Mount scored his first European goal, a clever turn and a final finish that showed striking recent improvements in his strength. It is perhaps not surprising that Lampard never had any doubt that Mount’s upward trajectory would continue.
“The moment I gave him the bracelet, I could see what it meant to him,” Lampard said during a Q&A session ahead of the London Football Awards this month. “It’s something you get when you spend academy players, and fans love it. But academy players who’ve been there for eight years fight with absolute desire in the team, it means so much to them. It’s tangible. It’s something which is important.You will not always see it at 20 [years old].
“They may have confidence in the immersion, and they have moments in the games, but if you have players who care, it doesn’t matter who the manager is. The desire they have because they work so hard and have the talent , will compete When I left Chelsea – and it’s no disrespect to the manager now, because of course he’s doing a fantastic job – but the manager will come in and I’ll address my house on it in two or three weeks ‘say’ wow “Mason Mount, trains like a champion every day, works off the ball and places the press, is of great quality and improves all the time and is now adding to his goals this year.”
Mount has made 53 appearances for club and country this season and is therefore comfortable on course to surpass the score of 59 from last season. He started England’s last eight games and was the only player to start all three of England’s World Cup qualifiers against San Marino. , Albania and Poland last month, with manager Gareth Southgate making a rather sharp comment, citing allegations that Mount was something of a pet project for Lampard. “I said in the autumn that he is a very good player. I now assume that Thomas Tuchel will choose him, everyone will agree. ‘
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Craig Burley is not being sold on Kai Havertz, Mason Mount and Christian Pulisic as Chelsea’s attacking trio.
Mount may have joined Chelsea at the age of 6 and approached every challenge with a positive outlook, but that did not deter some of the club’s fans from trying to judge a player who is still getting to know his trade. .
The bond between Mount and Lampard is undoubtedly strong. Mount has a framed shirt from the 2004-05 title-winning campaign, signed by Lampard, in his home; he won it in a lottery. Lampard, in turn, took a chance on an unknown teenager by taking him to Derby County in 2018 and starting 35 league games in a campaign that ended in a terrifying defeat against Aston Villa in the Championship final on Wembley.
Mount has been targeted for abuse on social media, and the Chelsea fan base reiterates the ruthlessness of Roman Abramovich, whose relentless pursuit of success has led to 13 different managers during his 18 years of ownership. Mount’s father, Tony, maintains that his son does not read the abuse, but the family does. Nevertheless, Tuchel’s arrival and subsequent confidence in the midfield led to the negativity being replaced by a growing recognition of qualities that Lampard had identified years earlier in a player whose only previous experience of senior football at Dutch club Vitesse Arnhem was borrowed in 2017-18.
“I never understood the critics,” Lampard said. ‘When he walked in the door [at Derby], I could immediately see something special in him.
“For me it was attitude and mentality. The first thing I always try to look at as a player is ‘what do they look like?’ for it has a great effect on how you can coach and make them better.Do they want to improve when they are young? And what does this mean for the group in which you bring them in?
“Everyone talked well about Mason in the Chelsea academy, so it was very clear. Then I saw something when he was playing. I looked at him a lot when he was playing in Holland, and it was an awareness of things. around a desire to work the team off the ball as well as the qualities he had on the ball. ‘
Natural fitness runs in the family – Mount’s grandfather was a boxer – but the Chelsea midfielder takes no chances with his conditioning. He uses one of the chefs in England to prepare and deliver his food. He sticks to structured recovery and maintains his fitness during the near season, exercises privately with a personal trainer and daily in the gym.
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Steve Nicol says there is almost no chance that Thomas Tuchel and Chelsea will not end up in the top four in the Premier League.
“When he came to Derby, I was sure it would be a difficult ride for him in the championship because of the physicality of the league,” Lampard said. “He had a very good game in the beginning, then a quieter game, and then he overcame it at the end of the season and was fantastic in the run-up. For me it was a benchmark of the player because he everyone was because I was a midfielder, I’m probably looking even closer – are you not going to score 15, 20 goals per season when they’re 21. It does not work that way, they have to find their way, mature, find the right times to to come in the box, and I saw it even more in him this season.
“I’m not there anymore, but it’s great to see him develop again. He’s going to keep developing, he’s going to be a fantastic player. I’ve probably said enough about him because people have already called him my son.”
With typical thoughts, Lampard looks at himself from the fear that he will tip from voice support to the kind of biased cheerleading of which he was once accused. But any debate over Mount’s ability to perform at the highest level is certainly over, and only an injury will prevent him from passing the 100 for Chelsea this season before playing a key role for England at Euro 2020 can play.
Mount improves his end product remarkably, and Lampard believes his game is ‘constantly evolving’. This came initially by taking advantage of a more central role in Lampard’s 4-3-3 system, before being adapted as one of Tuchel’s No. 10 twins in a 3-4-2-1 form . He set himself a target of 10 Premier League goals last season, falling short by three. He has all eight this quarter – and another three for England – while his four league assistants have come from regular games. In the last Euro, striker Harry Kane was on the corner with Gary Neville, an English coach under Roy Hodgson at that tournament, and later claimed that a lack of knowledgeable set pieces forced them to their no. 9 as an atypical alternative. That will not be the case this summer, as Mount offers far more than dead ball expertise.
When he explained why he appointed Mount captain against Luton in January, he pushed in one last answer about Mount, saying, ‘It was not a gesture. I did not know I was leaving at that point, but with Mason I wanted to show him that his position in the group had risen. And then he has to understand it and he has to get up. ‘Tuchel acknowledged that Mount was doing exactly that.
(Editor’s note: James Olley will be on the voting panel for the 2021. London Football Awards)