Mason Mount made his desire to emulate Frank Lampard quite clear last year.
“I’d love to add more goals to my game, like Frank did when he played for Chelsea,” Mount told Chelsea’s website last summer.
“If I could make even half of his goals then I’d be very happy. He was so dominant as a goalscoring midfielder.”
Seen by many as his pet project, Lampard took Mount under his wing both at Derby and then during his managerial spell at Chelsea, which ended in January.
Lampard’s penultimate Premier League game in charge of the Blues was a 1-0 win at Fulham, with Mount the matchwinner in what was just his second league goal of the season.
After the match, Lampard said he believed Mount was capable of scoring even more.
“It’s a conversation I have a lot with Mason,” Lampard had said. “He can get more goals from midfield. I had him at Derby that year but even then there was a feeling between me and him he could get more. I’m always on him about it because it was obviously something big in my game.
“He will score a lot more goals. By the time he’s 24, maturing into the prime of his career, I would like to think Mason Mount will be a player in the highest level in all senses and have at least 10 goals, maybe 15, a season in him.”
At this rate, Mount could hit double digits before the season is over, and under new manager Thomas Tuchel, the 22-year-old looks as though he could be capable of making that a regular occurrence.
Mount is Chelsea’s top scorer since Tuchel took charge, and on Wednesday night it was his stunning turn and strike which handed them the lead in their first-leg 2-0 win over Porto in the Champions League quarter-finals.
That goal, his first ever in the Champions League, followed one in their 5-2 loss to West Brom on the weekend, while Mount was also on target for England during international duty last month.
Mount now has 16 goals for Chelsea in 94 games, and seven of those have come in 2021 alone.
By comparison, Lampard scored 15 goals in 101 games during his first two seasons as a player at Chelsea, and he then went on to get double digits in the Premier League alone in the next 10 seasons at Stamford Bridge.
It is therefore clear to see why Lampard took a shining to Mount, but only now under Tuchel is this desire to emulate the Chelsea legend getting closer to becoming a reality.
Mount’s goalscoring contribution is increasing, and after becoming Chelsea’s youngest ever goalscorer in the Champions League knockout stages, he will continue to play a key role in their bid to be crowned Kings of Europe – nine years on from Lampard and co won the Blues their first.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3mrdULo
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