Only three players have more Premier League goal involvements than Mason Mount this season
THE terms ‘overrated’ and ‘underrated’ are massively overused in football parlance these days.
Now we’ve expressed that caveat we can freely ask: is it possible that Mason Mount (£4.7m) is still underrated?
The 23-year-old is an established Chelsea regular having fulfilled the obligatory loans to Vitesse and a Championship club (specifically Derby) earlier in his career.
He was under the tutelage of Frank Lampard at Pride Park and the Chelsea legend integrated the youngster into the Blues’ first team when he replaced Maurizio Sarri in 2019.
Thomas Tuchel benched Mount for his first game as Chelsea boss and there was initial speculation that the Cobham graduate’s progress would stall under the German’s watch but such talk has proved to be baseless.
Mount has been a key figure during Tuchel’s reign to date, playing a prominent role in the club’s most recent Champions League triumph.
And his individual statistics for the current campaign are highly impressive.
After scoring a brace and providing an assist against Southampton at the weekend, the England international has 18 goal involvements to his name in the Premier League this term.
A total of ten goals makes him the joint-tenth top scorer in the division while his tally of eight assists is bettered by only four players.
To put it another way, he’s created as many goals as Harry Kane (£7.7m), rightly heralded for his playmaking ability in recent times, and scored as many as Raphinha (£3.7m) and Riyad Mahrez (£7.1m) – two players praised for their blend of style and substance.
Only three players – Kane, Son Heung-min (£5.5m) and Mohamed Salah (£7.7m) – have registered more goal involvements in the top flight at this stage.
And Salah is the only other player to have score and assisted in the same league game five times this season.
All the evidence suggests Mount is enjoying a very fine season.
And yet it feels as if praise for Chelsea’s No19 has been relatively sparse.
Even some of his own fans believe he’s rarely been at his best this term – which just goes to show what may come in the future.
There’s no doubt he endured a hangover from Euro 2020, as did plenty of his international team-mates.
This is best evidenced by his Dream Team returns – Mount mustered just 17 points from his first nine outings.
The shackles were broken in Game Week 9 when he bagged a hat-trick against Norwich for a 30-point haul.
Since then he’s resided almost exclusively within the top ten midfielders.
At the time of writing, he’s the sixth-best asset in his position with 158 points to his name, just one shy of James Maddison (£4.2m).
Still just 23 years old, Mount has become an ultra reliable Dream Team player – one who can retain his place in an XI for months on end.
With an ownership of 21.4% he’s the fourth-most popular midfielder currently and deservedly so.
Chelsea have eight league fixtures remaining and will fancy their chances of making the FA Cup final after drawing Crystal Palace in the semis.
Odds of defending their European crown are against them after Karim Benzema’s hat-trick but Tuchel’s side may be able to produce something special in Madrid this evening.
Even if Mount is eliminated from the Champions League tonight, as someone who is on course to achieve 20+ goal involvements in the Premier League he’s a trustworthy option for the remainder of the season.