It would be an understatement to say Mason Mount has lived up to the hype surrounding his name this season.
With a string of impressive performances, the 20-year-old has already become the poster boy for Lampard’s side.
He’s wiped all doubts about his future at this level away with some sparkling performances, some hard work in pressing and two well-taken goals.
Over the years, the youngster has even played in several different positions, adapting to wherever his manager needs him. Now at Chelsea, Lampard will be glad he’s already shaping his fellow Englishman to be something of a younger version of himself during his playing days.
The Chelsea boss was something of an “excellent” playmaker during his days and to emulate him, Mason Mount will have to step up his game significantly.
He’s been just about impressive all-round but there’s one pivotal area begging for an improvement in his general gameplay so far.
The one area he can improve on so far is his passing in the final third. That’s not to say it hasn’t been good – in fact according to WhoScored he has played two key passes per game, the joint most on the Chelsea team.
But when you compare that number to that of a Kevin De Bruyne who makes a minimum of four key passes per game and is still always looking to improve, you’ll realize Mason Mount still has a lot to do in that regard.
Key passes are what lead to assists and they can only happen in the final third – well except you have a teammate that can rifle in a 30-40 yard volley every week and it’s more than obvious no one in the Chelsea squad or even in football right now can do that week in week out.
A look at Mason Mount’s heatmaps in his past three games for Chelsea show he lacks major activity in the final third and perhaps that’s why he has zero assists till date upon all his impressive performances.
In his past three games, his pass maps show he doesn’t have activity as he should be getting in the final third.
Against Leicester and Norwich, he saw more touches of the ball and went closer to the final third(probably because they’re more attacking sides as well) but against Sheffield United, his struggles were particularly evident.
In the course of the season, more teams will set up defensively against Chelsea because of their rich attacking potent and if Mount fails to work out something, he could literally be a shadow in those games.
Goals are always welcome – especially for a midfielder but they won’t come every week and the 20-year-old midfielder must find a “balanced” way to impact games even when he doesn’t score goals.
At 20, time is very much on his side and he still has a long way to go before he can be rated as one of the top midfielders in the League.
