Manchester United midfielder Mason Mount will make a big impact in the future according to his former Chelsea boss Frank Lampard.
United needed midfield reinforcements over the summer and decided to strike a big move to sign Mason Mount from Chelsea.
Entering the final year of his Chelsea deal, Mount decided to join United in a deal worth around £55million.
Mount wasn’t at his best last season and a fresh start at United was supposed to help him get back on track – but that just hasn’t happened.
Mount has only managed four Premier League starts this season and hasn’t played since the 11th of November having been ruled out with injury.
Frank Lampard backs Mason Mount to shine at Manchester United
Mount is on his way back to fitness now and United fans need to see him make an impact before the summer window.
That isn’t to say that United could sell Mount if he doesn’t shine, but supporters will want to see just why he was signed.
One man who knows Mount very well is Frank Lampard, who signed Mount on loan for Derby County and then gave him his big break at Chelsea.
Lampard has told Stick to Football that he loved coaching Mount at Derby and Chelsea, calling his pressing and off-the-ball contribution as ‘brilliant’.
Lampard noted that Mount has a very ‘driven’ and ‘determined’ mentality, but questions just where he will fit into the team at Old Trafford.
The former England star noted that Bruno Fernandes and Mount largely want to play in similar positions and fitting them both into the side will be difficult – even if he does predict that Mount will shine once he finds his role at United.
“From my point of view, because I took him to Derby, he changed everything for me there really,” said Lampard. “His level in training was high, high level. Pressing brilliant, off the ball stuff brilliant, if you want to give him information, he takes it like that, he’ll jump and recover, jump and recover, a great lad, good technically, very good technically, so I think he’s really high level in loads of those areas and a proper lad.”
“He’s very driven. If you drop him, the face goes – straight away – but not in a bad way, he’s like ‘I wanna show you’, he’s very determined like that. I do think he’ll come good because of that and because of his talent, and once the team gets more structured, because I do think it’s important for the structure of your team to say ‘you’re an aggressive eight or you’re a 10’. The only worry I had when he went to Man Utd was ‘where do Bruno Fernandes and him fit?’, and then you’ve got Casemiro. I know it’s starting to develop already and change probably away from that as an idea, but you kind of go ‘where do you fit?’”
“This is not to dig Mason or to dig Man Utd for bringing him in, but a player of that level for that level of money, you’ve got to go ‘this the plan’, that’s what I’d want to hear. He can play as a single 10, but the captain of the football club, Bruno Fernandes, is playing there and hardly gets injured as far as I see it, so I think that will be a difficult one and a conundrum to solve as a team, to get him into the team and in his best position,” he added.
Erik ten Hag faces Mount problem
United came into the season with Casemiro as a lone holding midfielder with Mount and Fernandes operating higher up the pitch.
This setup really didn’t work; United were lucky to beat Wolverhampton Wanderers on the opening weekend of the season and were cut through at will through the middle of the pitch.
Erik ten Hag tried it again for the trip to Tottenham, but United were second best again and lost 2-0 in North London.
Mount then picked up an injury and that really sparked a stop-start campaign and he has yet to really show his best form in a United shirt.
The 25-year-old will be desperate to prove himself but just how he gets into the side is unclear as Ten Hag may be wary of going back to the Mount-Casemiro-Bruno triumvirate.
Would that mean Mount playing deeper or maybe even out wide? Possibly, but Ten Hag needs to figure out how to get Mount and Fernandes into the team together – or face questions over just why United signed Mount in the first place.
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