John Nicholson’s early shout for 2023-24’s Player of the Year is Mason Mount. Why is the Manchester United new boy not more universally appreciated?
Here’s ‘What’s So Great About…’ the England star….
Who’s this then?
Mason Tony Mount is a 24-year-old, 5’11” Portsmouth-born former Chelsea midfielder who has recently signed a five-year contract with Manchester United for an initial £55million.
Despite his age he has already racked up 324 club appearances, scored 64 goals and made 62 assists. Until this year he was one of the most highly-regarded English midfielders.
He will almost certainly be picked for the next England squad by Gareth Southgate, who seems to be a big fan of double M.
His father was a non-league player and the young Mason showed early promise and he joined Chelsea at the age of just six, which does seem ridiculously young. By the time he was in his teens, he was playing in the under-age sides and doing well, being part of the 2016–17 Under-18 Premier League winning team. He also won two FA Youth Cups, the UEFA Youth League, and was voted Chelsea Academy Player of the Year 2017.
When he was promoted to the first team aged 18, he was immediately loaned out to Dutch side Vitesse for a season along with another Chelsea kid Fankaty Dabo (who now plays for Coventry). It was a successful and developmental campaign. He played in 39 games and scored 14 times and was voted Vitesse’s Player Of The Year. It wouldn’t be the last time he was to be voted a club Player Of The Year.
Returning to England for 2018-19, Frank Lampard took him on loan to Derby County. Again, Mason impressed, turning out 44 times and scoring 11, despite having two months off with twanged hammy.
Lampard promptly fell ass backwards into the Chelsea job, just as Mason was returning to base and thus gave him a new five-year contract and a chance in the first team. Given Mount’s excellent performances to that date, it wasn’t really the biggest, cleverest decision to make, despite some Frank brown-nosers claiming otherwise.
Since that time he has played 195 games for the club scoring 33 times and until last season’s skip fire, become crucial to how Chelsea play, with Thomas Tuchel citing him as one of their most important players and one of the best in Europe. He won the Champions League with the Blues and was voted Chelsea Player of the Year 2020–21 and again in 2021–22.
Everything was coming up Mason at club level and then he got his first full cap for England in 2019. He had played in all the under-age teams, had won the Under-19 Euros and was named ‘Golden Player’ of the tournament. Note how many such awards he wins. It’s not for no reason.
He was also part of the team that lost to Italy in the Euro final and currently has 36 caps and six goals for his country.
Why the love?
I make no apology for my mounting Mount love. I find him an exciting and rather liquid player who seems to think and act fast. He’s like a high performance fuel who makes everything work better. I love the way he finds space and the fact he’s brave on the ball. Given the relative success of England, the fact Southgate likes him so much, should alert doubters to his quality.
Quite how or why Mason became a player who divides opinion is a bit of a mystery. I mean, he’s a very, very good footballer with two FA Cup and a Champions League winners medals already in his trophy cabinet..
Look at all the personal honours he’s won since an early age, those haven’t happened because he’s just lucky or is the teacher’s pet. But last season, when he had a slight dip in form, possibly because of where he was played, it seemed to give critics a chance to jump on him again. It was as though they had been waiting for an opportunity to attack him again as a sort of indefinable presence with no real role in the team. You don’t have to be a Billy big bollocks to be an important player.
Perhaps familiarity does breed contempt, and given there is more money to be made out of contempt in modern media perhaps that explains why the few naysayers have been amplified.
I also wonder if some don’t like him because he seems such a nice lad. He is articulate and doesn’t seem to be forever in search of the lowest cultural common denominator. There can be no greater crime in some quarters than not being ‘a big character’. He still looks very young but he’s been playing at a very high level since his teens. Despite only being 24, he’s very experienced.
On the pitch he is the complete progressive midfielder, as capable of scoring a goal as he is of assisting a goalscorer. Add in the fact that he can put a free kick in the top corner and is frequently the middle third player who connects the back play to progressive front play, and it’s easy to see why he is rated so highly for club and country.
And yet there is still some cynicism about him. Some people do feel he is overrated and his presence, especially in the England team, is just blocking a more talented player. Perhaps because he has risen from youth to international level so smoothly, because he has been so feted from such a young age, that he seems part of some sort of privileged elite who has had an easy ride and never had to fight for anything in his life.
He can play right across the midfield and will bring a lot of progressive energy to Manchester United. He should raise the pace at which they play and United usually play far better when playing fast, crisp football. That’s what Mount does. He is the oil that makes the machine work, often unseen or unnoticed but without which everything seizes up.
Three great moments
His goal for England against Germany is a very typical double M…
This shows exactly why so many think he’s so good…
His United debut…
Future days?
In the lunatic asylum that is modern football, £55million for a top-class 24-year-old is a relative bargain. United’s midfield was shored up by Casemiro but often lacked dynamism especially when playing against a deep block. He should be the cure for that and will be vital for fast and direct transitions.
Being able to play at speed, make quick decisions and run non-stop is a sometimes under-valued aspect to someone’s game in 2023. While Mount doesn’t lack skill, more than anything else he is both reliable and effective. He isn’t flashy – maybe that accounts for some of the criticism he gets – but he knows what he’s doing and Erik ten Hag will know exactly where to play him to get the best out of him. We can look forward to seeing him making penetrating runs into the box, or arriving later to batter one into the corner of the net. He already exceeds his xG and will certainly add goals into the team.
Mount must be delighted to abandon the Chelsea bin fire despite being there since he was a wee boy. The odds must be in favour of him making a big difference to Manchester United. He has always been an exciting player to watch and as he moves into his mid-20s, these may well be his peak five or six years. United have bought him at just the right time. Don’t back against him being Player Of The Year.
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