The father of Chelsea youngster Mason Mount has admitted that he wanted his son to leave the club five years ago. In 2014, Mount had a difficult choice to make as he had to choose between either leaving the Blues permanently to join another club or signing a scholarship deal with the West London club. At the time, Mount was one of the most highly-rated 15-year-old players in England.
The youngster eventually opted to remain with his boyhood club. It would have been hard to really fault him. The Blues have a poor reputation in terms of how they treat young talent. Most of their youth products never even manage to establish themselves with the first-team. So reckless have been the Blues with their young talent that they have even let go of the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Kevin de Bruyne and Mohamed Salah without really allowing the trio to establish themselves within the first-team.
“I told Mason I thought he needed to move on to get the best opportunity,” Tony told The Sun.
“I said, ‘No one at Chelsea’s academy has got into the first-team since John Terry — what chance have you got?’
“Mason shot back, ‘I’ll be the next one.’ He said, ‘I’m not leaving Chelsea, it’s my club. I’ve been here since the age of six and I’m going all the way.'”
Mount is set to be given an opportunity to shine for Chelsea this season
Since graduating to the Blues first-team in 2017, Mount has had two loan spells with the likes of Vitesse and Derby County last season where he played under new Chelsea boss Frank Lampard. He impressed during both spells and proved that he is a goal-scoring midfielder. During his spell with Vitesse, the England U21 international went on to make 29 Eredivisie appearances, scoring nine goals. He was named as the club’s Player of the year and won the Eredivisie Talent of the month in January 2018.
He went on to make 35 Championship appearances for Derby County last season and scored eight goals as the Rams ended up losing out during the promotion playoff final against Aston Villa.
