Mason Mount - Tuchel's Brit
Personally, I am all here for Tuchel berating players and think the British press give foreign coaches a hard run.
“We brought in Callum Hudson-Odoi but I was not happy with his attitude, energy and counter-pressing.
“I took him off and we demand 100%, I feel he is not in the right shape to help us. It was a hard decision but tomorrow it is forgotten and he has all possibilities to start against Atletico Madrid.”
This is Thomas Tuchel, on Callum Hudson-Odoi. Tuchel was long known as a ‘spiky’ coach, and after this British pundits lined up to explain why this German coach was wrong. This German coach who’d excelled across Europe and followed in the footsteps of Jurgen Klopp, and proved, again and again, how good he was.
It came after a poor attacking performance from Chelsea, which saw them draw against Southampton. Tuchel identified how across 80m of the pitch Chelsea were brilliant, but the final 20m they seemed to run up out of ideas (and ability).
There was however a silver-lining to the attacking performances.
22-year-old Mason Mount, Portsmouth born, Chelsea bred midfielder/attacker who genuinely looked dangerous. Who forced the penalty which helped Chelsea equalise, and was there only flash of light in the game.
For country, he’s one of a crowded, and talented, field of attacking midfielders. But if you dive in Mount’s stats you quickly realise his ability and versatility begins to set him out from the rest of the pack.
Against Southampton, he was one of the ‘2’ in a 3-4-2-1. He lined up alongside Werner, behind Abraham. In the attacking midfield role, one of the things he excels at is disrupting the opponents, pressing high and early - ala gegenpress. In this role, he’s in the top 3% for disrupting roles (sourced: smarterscout - instead of sourcing every time I’ll link them at the bottom). What’s interesting, is that from this role, he usually isn’t the one scoring. He’s a lot more industrial. He’s also winning almost 3/4 of his ground duels in possession. His defending quality is impressively high at 82 (whilst his quantity does fall short at 26). But, as an attacking midfielder, it’s not all industrial grunt work. His attacking output - a measure of contribution to a teams xGF (expected goals for) - is 78 (calculated in a rating out of a hundred, i.e. he’s better than 78% of cam’s at this) and his ball retention is 82.
Which are all impressive numbers for a CAM, not the best ever, but good, and are reflected in his on pitch performances. But then, when you look at him in other positions, you really begin to understand the gem you have on your hands.
Suddenly, in CM, he has a attacking output if 87, defensive quantity and quality of 74 and 93. Similarly, his stylistic ratings like receiving in box, shooting, link up, and more all shoot up. Now clearly, this seems to suggest CM is his better/more played role - a pairing with Henderson perhaps? - which would be a good place to end it, had he not also notable stats for playing on the wing.
This is what happened against Southampton in the second half, along with the aforementioned Hudson-Odoi, he was shunted wider, to stretch play.
At LW you suddenly have one of the best players for receiving in the box, better than 99% of LW’s. Then at RW, you’ve got a player in the top 2% for shots, link up, ball retention whilst his disruption drops to one of the lowest.
You have a player thriving across nearly every position from midfield forward - beyond the number 9 role (to which I say, give him to Pep (I’m joking … mostly)).
In terms of minutes, this is a player who has predominantly played down the middle, but shown his worth on the wings if needed. You can argue that his time on the wings have been good one or two offs, but performances like against Southampton show the resilience and talent of him, surrounded by a team underperforming in the final-third.
This versatility is reflected on FBref’s own football stats site. When compared to midfielders across the ‘big 5 leagues’ Mount comes out regularly amongst the top 5% of midfielders in terms of attacking attributes. The only place he trips up is not being aggressive enough in his passing (someone tell him to watch Bruno Fernandes) and his pass completion. Apart from that: non-penalty expected goals, expected assists, shot creating actions, progressive passes received, touches in the opposing penalty area, and shot total are all in the top 6% of midfielders. His xG (expected goals) are in the top 16% in case anyone was going to argue it wasn’t paying off.
Then, flipped on its head, and compared to attackers/strikers/wingers, you’ve got the opposite. You see the disruptor smartscouter highlighted in action. An attacking midfielder amongst the best for pressures, tackles and interceptions: and his passing suddenly isn’t lagging, but compared to attackers is amongst the very best.
Mount is an exciting player, a hybrid operating across a grey space between the attackers and wingers to midfielders. Undoubtedly better going forward, no one’s pumping him up as a Roy Keane holding mid, but the type who goes forward and defends from the front.
An exciting player who now needs to turn this talent and ability into numbers. Like Grealish has done this season, he needs to turn his current 4 goals, 3 assists, into double figures. This undoubtedly would be easier with a stronger attack around him, but Mount needs to start taking the lead. Abraham isn’t going to do it, Werner isn’t and right now Chelsea need that.
Myth-makers and failures
There’s a tendency amongst sportsmen (and I can only talk on sportsmen because in the only female sports I’m up with (football and hockey) they really don’t do this) to create their own legends.
Whether it’s LeBron mumbling along to a rap song he definitely doesn’t know the words for, or Zlatan Ibrahimovic thinking of how he’ll refer to himself in the third person next time, there’s a growing trend of giving yourself flowers, whilst you’re playing. Now, I don’t necessarily haven’t anything against top sportsmen going ‘hey, look at me, I’m one of the best’. But the need to mythologise themselves grates against me and I find increasingly frustrating.
These are amongst the best players but seem so intent on marking their place in history with their words, that they worry too much about talking the talk than walking the walk. Instead of letting their work and talent scribe their name on the history book, they waste time and energy trying to do it themselves, jumping up and down flapping their arms like toddlers trying to get the world to pay them attention.
And the sad thing is, they don’t need to. They’re good enough to go down in history, but right now, if you take Ibra as a case study, you find him stagnating slightly as he seems to worry about his name, and legend, as younger, just as talented players focus on what’s going on with the ball at their feet. As Lukaku puts in another stellar performance (he is one of the best strikers in the world right now) and helps win the Milan derby, Ibra cuts a dejected figure, a shadow of the man who once didn’t worry about his third-person quotes.
BILIOGRAPHY:
This website, and this one mainly, and then a bunch of articles and google searches.