In some circles it was feared that Mason Mount’s fledgling career could stall when Thomas Tuchel replaced Frank Lampard as Chelsea coach in late January. After all, Lampard was fired in part because of the poor form of several key attacking signings, most of his £ 220 million disbursement last summer.
Tuchel’s ability to speak German was seen as a vital asset in improving the fortunes of Timo Werner and Kai Havertz, the latter only showing signs of establishing himself as an influential player after a difficult first season in England. Mount was named captain of Lampard’s last game at the helm, but was abandoned by Tuchel’s first, a perfect distillation of the challenge the 22-year-old had in proving himself. His rise was influenced in part by the club’s ban on transfers, but before his departure, Lampard had wanted to promote youth, regardless of the years after Chelsea executives ignored the club’s academy graduates.
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Still, Mount will make his hundredth appearance for the Blues in the coming weeks, possibly as soon as May 1, after being as vital to Tuchel as Lampard is.
Chelsea reached the Champions League semi-finals on Tuesday with an aggregate 2-1 win over Porto, despite losing the first leg 1-0 to an impressive last-minute volley from Mehdi Taremi. His path was finally secured with last week’s 2-0 win in the first leg in which Mount scored his first European goal, a clever turn and just showed remarkable recent improvements in his power. . Perhaps not surprisingly, Lampard never had any doubt that Mount’s upward trajectory would continue.
“The moment I gave him the bracelet, I could see the face of what that meant to him,” Lampard said in a question and answer session ahead of this month’s London Football Awards. “This is something you get through the academy players, and the fans love it. But the academy players who have been there for eight years are facing the team with an absolute desire. , this means a lot to them.This is tangible.This is tangible.something important.You will not always see it at 20 years old [years old].
“They may have confidence in the confidence, they may have moments in the games, but when you have players who care about them, it doesn’t matter who the manager is. The desire they have, because they work hard and have that talent, will bring them so when I left Chelsea – and that’s not a disrespect to the coach because he’s obviously doing a fantastic job – but the coach would come in and put my house in order within two or three weeks. : “Wow, Mason Mount, he trains every day like a champion, works off the ball and marks the press, has great quality, is improving all the time and now adds goals to his game this year.”
Mount has played 53 games this season per club and country and is therefore comfortably on track to surpass last season’s 59 count. He has started the last eight games in England and has been the only player to start the three qualifiers in the World Cup in England against San Marino. , Albania and Poland last month, with manager Gareth Southgate making a rather notable comment, alluding to the accusation that Mount was a pet project for Lampard. “I said in the fall that he was a very good player, I guess now Thomas Tuchel chooses him, everyone will agree.”
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Craig Burley is not sold to Kai Havertz, Mason Mount and Christian Pulisic as Chelsea’s attacking trio.
Mount could have joined Chelsea at the age of 6 and tackled all the challenges with a positive outlook, although that didn’t deter some of the club’s fans from rushing to judge a player who was still palpably learning his trade.
The link between Mount and Lampard is certainly strong. Mount has a Chelsea-signed 2004-05 campaign shirt signed by Lampard at home; he won it in a draw. In turn, Lampard bet on an unknown teenager to take him to Derby County in 2018, starting 35 league games in a campaign that ended in a dying defeat to Aston Villa in the Championship playoff final at Wembley.
Mount has been abused on social media, the Chelsea fan base replicates a bit the cruelty of Roman Abramovich, the relentless pursuit of success has led to 13 different managers during his 18 years of ownership. Mount’s father, Tony, insists his son doesn’t read the abuse, but the family does. However, the arrival of Tuchel and the consequent confidence in the midfielder have led to this negativity being replaced by a growing recognition of the traits that Lampard identified years before in a player the only previous experience of senior football that yielded to the Dutch club Vitesse Arnhem in 2017-18.
“I’ve never understood criticism,” Lampard said. “When he entered through the door [at Derby], I could immediately see something special in him.
“For me, it was attitude and mindset. The first thing I always try to look at as a player is ‘how are they?’ because that has a big effect on how you can train and improve them. Do they want to improve when they are young? And what does this mean for the group you are joining?
“Everyone was talking good about Mason at Chelsea academy, so it was very clear. Then there was something I had seen when he was playing. I saw a lot of him when he was playing in Holland and he was aware of the things around him. “The desire to work for the team off the ball, as well as the qualities I had on the ball.”
Fitness works for the family (Mount’s grandfather was a boxer), but the Chelsea midfielder does not risk his conditioning. He uses one of the chefs employed in England to prepare and deliver his food, decisively following the structured recovery and maintaining his fitness during the closing season, training privately with a personal trainer and daily at the gym.
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Steve Nicol says there is almost no chance that Thomas Tuchel and Chelsea will not finish in the top four in the Premier League.
“When he came to the Derby, he was sure it would be a difficult trip for him to the Championship because of the physicality of the league,” Lampard said. “He had a really good spell at first, then a calmer spell and then he overcame it at the end of the season and he was fantastic in filming. For me that was a measure of the player which is because all the young players (because he was a midfielder, I probably look closer) they won’t score 15, 20 goals a season when they have 21. It doesn’t work that way.They have to find their way, mature I found the right moments to get to the box and I began to see it even more in him.
“I’m not there anymore, but re-developing it is fantastic. It will continue to develop, it will be a fantastic player. I’ve probably said enough because people already called it my son.”
With typical thinking, Lampard checks himself for fear of moving from vocal support to the kind of partisan cheerleaders he was once accused of. But any debate over Mount’s ability to act at the top level is surely over, and only the injury will prevent him from passing the 100-mark mark at Chelsea this season, before playing what could be a key role for him. England at Euro 2020.
Mount is significantly improving his end product and Lampard believes his game is “evolving all the time.” This initially occurred in benefiting from a more central role in Lampard’s 4-3-3 system, before adapting as one of the No. 2 twins. 10 of Tuchel in a 3-4-2-1 form. Last season he set a goal of 10 Premier League goals, staying for three. He already has eight in this term – and three more for England – while his four assists in the league have come to a standstill. In the final euros, striker Harry Kane was on the corner with England coach Gary Neville under Roy Hodgson in that tournament, later claiming that the lack of experts in set pieces forced them to use your number 9 as an atypical alternative. This won’t be the case this summer, as Mount offers so much more than a dead ball experience.
Explaining why he made Mount captain against Luton in January, Lampard gave a final response about Mount and added, “It wasn’t a gesture. I didn’t know he would leave at that time, but with Mason, he wanted to show that his position in the group had increased. And then he has to understand it and he has to stand up. ” Tuchel has acknowledged that Mount is doing this.
(Editor’s note: James Olley will be on the voting board for the 2021 London Football Awards).