Anyone reporting anything remotely positive about Mason Mount are members of his PR team according to a growing group of Chelsea Twitter ultras who lap up reports by the club’s mouthpieces.
A report on Monday said Mason Mount ‘will continue to give everything for Chelsea while he is still a player at the club and he is prepared to go on tour and work hard ahead of next season’.
It’s nothing short of what you would expect from a Chelsea lad through and through, who has spent his life in blue, from attempting to recreate iconic Cristiano Ronaldo free-kicks with a mop of long hair and a cheeky grin as a ten-year-old to scoring winners against Real Madrid in a Champions League semi-final.
In a period of monumental transition for Chelsea, in which swathes of new players have arrived and similar numbers – club legends among them – are set to leave, Mount could have provided stability and continuity along with his quality, but is instead on the verge of a move to Manchester United. It’s a sorry state of affairs.
But worse than that, should Chelsea and United not agree his fee, Mount may no longer be welcome at the club he’s called his home for the last 18 years.
His return would not be a problem for Mauricio Pochettino – who’s an excellent football manager so would love to have him – or for the players, who all appear to hold Mount in high regard, or indeed the owners, who have at least said they want him to stay despite failing to persuade him to agree new terms.
But Mount – inarguably one of the club’s top three academy graduates in the Premier League era along with John Terry and Reece James – won’t be welcomed back by a significant number of the club’s fans.
And they are fans, perhaps not like you or I as they appear to have a very skewed view and love shouting into the social media abyss, and they do inarguably love Chelsea. They’re also very visible, which is a problem for Mount, who is undoubtedly barraged with abuse, but also for similarly impressionable Chelsea folk who are yet to join the agenda-hungry band.
These Chelsea Twitter ultras have become obsessed with ‘Mount PR’ – a social media trend that’s now gone beyond details of his botched contract renewal to anything remotely positive associated with the England international. Highly regarded journalists known to have an inside track at Chelsea and with Mount’s representatives, seemingly well placed to report on negotiations and his proposed move to Manchester United, are labelled members of the ‘Mount PR’ team if they have the temerity to suggest anything other than him being booted out of the club.
Things got particularly heated after one journalist claimed over the weekend that ‘Mount’s preference was to remain at Chelsea, but he felt he was getting forced out’ and that ‘Chelsea’s last contract offer was in February, which was a one-year extension’.
That is at odds with what journalists like Fabrizio Romano have been reporting, and the transfer expert’s greater social media following means he’s a more credible source in the eyes of the Mount detractors, which is of course a nonsense. We’re not for one second suggesting he’s making anything up; this is clearly a case of one set of journalists getting their information from Mount’s representatives and another group receiving information from Chelsea.
— 🌪 (@billahibarkley) June 24, 2023
Mount doesn’t want to burn his bridges entirely with Chelsea on the off-chance he doesn’t get his move away. Chelsea don’t want to be seen to be forcing out a top English talent and academy graduate. We can’t know what’s actually true; that is sadly how PR works.
What’s far more sad though is the willingness of Chelsea fans to take the word of the owners – who have overseen the most disastrous of seasons – as gospel, while immediately dismissing reports that the boy who loves Chelsea would actually rather stay. The irony of them calling out the ‘Mount PR’ while falling hook, line and sinker for the club propaganda is predictably entirely lost on them.
If they were to think about it, it’s far more believable that Mount would want to stay than join a direct Premier League rival in Manchester United. Because why would he want to do that? For money perhaps, or better contract terms, but any deal offered by United should at least be matched by Chelsea – that’s not his problem. Does he have a better chance of success at United? No. Does he want to leave London? Presumably not. Would he rather work with Erik ten Hag than Mauricio Pochettino? We can’t think why that would be the case.
Money talks, particularly at Chelsea. And the owners wouldn’t have so many fans on their side, and thus against Mount, had they not spent £600m in their first season. The mistakes were numerous and wide-ranging but signing Enzo Fernandez, Mykhaylo Mudryk and Christopher Nkunku has been more than enough to appease the transfer-obsessed supporters.
For them it doesn’t matter what evidence is produced to back up the claims of the ‘Mount PR’ team. They don’t care what Mount was offered or how poorly he’s been treated. His rejection of a contract – no matter the length or salary – is tantamount to treason and there’s no way back.
READ MORE: Man Utd are not serious people if they entertain Chelsea’s Mount counter…
