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Mount keen to follow youth glory days
MASON MOUNT twice tasted FA Cup glory with Chelsea’s kids in a period that saw the youth team win the competition five years on the trot.
Now the 20-year-old midfielder is targeting a winner’s medal as he looks to collect his first major honour.
Mount, Callum Hudson-odoi, Tammy Abraham, Reece James, Fikayo Tomori and Tariq Lamptey all lifted the Youth Cup, and there is a firm belief they can transfer that winning mentality to senior level.
Mount said: “The FA Cup is massive. You always want to win silverware and there’s a big focus on trying to win.
“Obviously every game you want to try to win but, yes, the Youth Cups, I’ve unbelievable memories as a kid coming through youth football and winning that was one of the best moments.
“You always want to win big games and hopefully we can keep going further.
“We all know how it feels to win Youth Cups and to keep winning in a row – we managed five and I played in two of them – we know how it feels.
“We want to get that feeling back of winning major trophies.”
Underdogs
Chelsea kick off their bid today at home to Nottingham Forest, a team Mount knows well having played against them last season during his loan spell with their arch-rivals Derby.
He added: “I’ll probably get a little bit of stick, obviously being at Derby, they will remember that.
“They’ll probably have a similar mentality to the one we had last season when we played Southampton in the FA Cup and Manchester United in the League Cup.
“The same mentality going into it that they have no real pressure, they are the underdogs, they are coming in playing free.
“Obviously we need to have that mentality of, ‘We need to kill the game’.
“We’re at home, we just need to go in with that confidence and to play and win the game.
Mount has been doing well since returning to Chelsea last summer, breaking into the first team under Frank Lampard and being capped six times in that period with England.
And now the focus switches to 2020 and the European Championship finals at the end of the season.
He said: “My hopes are to keep going as the season has started, playing minutes, trying to get as much experience as I can and learning. I’m playing in one of the best leagues in the world and loving my football.
“So hopefully we can keep getting these performances like the Tottenham and Arsenal games and hopefully we can keep winning games.”