Mount not cut out for you, Jose

IT is only a hunch but my guess is Mason Mount, at the age of 22, will soon have his third managerial ‘dad’.

The adopted footballing son of Frank Lampard and Gareth Southgate will be a chosen one of Thomas Tuchel.

That is for sure.

So maybe Mount (above) is not just some sort of clean-cut, teacher’s pet whom coaches would like to count as one of their own.

Maybe he is just a high-class player.

Maybe he is a young footballer with boundless energy allied to an agile footballing brain.

Maybe he is the sort of operator who gives a perpetual option, who links play with such intelligent regularity.

Tuchel might have been making a point when he left Mount out of his first starting line-up against Wolves at Stamford Bridge.

But it was a fleeting gesture. It probably had to be after that stalemate.

Mount first came to prominence in England cutting his teeth under Lampard on loan at Derby in the Championship a couple of years ago.

He has become the archetypal, 21st century, elite midfielder... just as Jose Mourinho is not the archetypal, 21st century, elite coach.

Put simply, Mourinho bucks the trend among his blue-chip rivals in that he does not appear to be overly keen on having the ball.

That certainly seemed to be the case in the first half of this contest.

It is such a surprise when his side actually do have it that they often seem to be utterly clueless when possession somehow comes their way.

There is probably not a coach out there who Mount would not get along with – but Mourinho would make a stab at testing that theory.

Thankfully for Mount, Jose is unlikely to get the chance.

And even though it is still only the formative stages, it seems happily inevitable that Mount will thrive under Tuchel.

Tuchel will keep Mount on his toes, that much is certain.

But he must already realise why Mason is every coach’s favourite son.