Mason Mount - The boy who had a dream
Back in September 2021 Chelsea fans at Stamford Bridge unveiled a new banner of their academy graduate Mason Mount. Today it found its true meaning.
The now famous banner showed Mount, who officially completed his transfer to Manchester United this morning, holding the Champions League trophy accompanied by the words: “Mason Mount. The boy who had a dream.”
Mount played the perfect through ball to Kai Havertz in the 2020/21 Champions League final that allowed the German to round Manchester City’s Ederson and score the winning goal.
Despite winning the biggest honour there is at Chelsea and spending 18-years at Stamford Bridge, Andy Mitten wrote an article this morning about how the club felt Mount was a United player from the first time that they made contact with him over a move. It is crucial that United only sign players they believe really want to play for them, rather than coming solely for a big contract.
The 24-year-old knew that Arsenal and Liverpool were interested — Mikel Arteta and Jurgen Klopp known admirers — but he wasn’t even slightly tempted to move to either club once United came knocking on the door.
Unsurprisingly, United fans have been quick to come up with banner ideas of their own following Mount’s arrival. Stretty News writer @DaytrippingRed suggested Chelsea’s use of ‘the boy who had a dream’, only for the lads at TRA to share a fantastic concept as seen below.
Mount is costing United £55m and £5m in performance-related add-ons, which is a good price for Chelsea considering he had one-year left on his deal. From Erik ten Hag’s perspective United are landing a modern midfielder, capable of carrying out specific tactical instructions and leading the press. Essentially we are getting a vast upgrade on Fred, who could be leaving this summer with Fulham registering an interest in the Brazil International.
His final season at Chelsea was a complete write-off and that’s not on an individual note. It was a historically poor campaign which yielded record lows for points, goals scored and morale. The debut season under the Todd-Boehly-Clearlake Capital ownership will be remembered for being a circus.
Mount was dealing with injuries, knocks and not having a stable position as Chelsea fired Graham Potter and Frank Lampard, who had the midfielder on loan at Derby County, was hired on an interim basis for the remainder of the season. He scored 11 goals and registered 10 assists in the Premier League, but United can expect a better return than that next season.