Mason Mount says he’s delighted to have found the net in the last two games against Morecambe and Fulham and has revealed how he told Mateo Kovacic to drop back just moments before the goal at Craven Cottage.
Chelsea were without a win in their last three games in the Premier League and appeared on course for yet more disappointment as Fulham managed to keep them at bay after the red card to Antonee Robinson.
But Mount scored the decisive goal after Alphonse Areola palmed away Ben Chilwell’s cross in the 78th minute and the visitors kept hold of their narrow advantage to secure all three points.
‘I turned 22 [last Sunday] and now I have two goals so it has been a good week and hopefully that continues,’ Mount told Chelsea’s official website.
‘I should have had two against Fulham really, I should have scored in the first half but I am happy with one as well.
‘Jorginho went off and the manager brought Tammy on and then Timo on so I dropped a bit deeper and I was in there with Kov [Mateo Kovacic] so I told him to sit a bit and that allowed me to go a bit more forward, and then I found myself in the box which recently in the last couple of weeks I haven’t been doing.
‘I haven’t been getting in the box as much and that was something I looked at. I managed to get in there in this game and it fell to me.’
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Frank Lampard urged his players to keep plugging away during his half-time team talk on Saturday and, according to Mount, their patience finally paid off.
‘They had five at the back and that is always difficult,’ the Chelsea midfielder added. ‘You kind of feel like you are camped in and you are trying to keep the ball and you feel like you are getting impatient at times and you start forcing it. That kind of sets in but we did well on that and we stayed patient.
‘We tried to play and with them having a man sent off it helped us coming out for the second half, and then it got better and better and we nicked the goal so we are pleased with that.
‘The gaffer said just keep moving the ball, keeping staying confident and keep trying to open them up and let our quality come out and I thought we did that. ‘We analysed them a lot so we knew they have very good threats up front and they defend well.
‘Against many other teams they don’t give many chances away so we knew that but we stayed patient, we kept moving the ball and tried to open them up from the sides and get crosses in.
‘Hopefully one was going to fall to us and luckily that fell to me and I managed to score.’
Mount continued: ‘It was a massive game for us. We know the run we have been through, recently it has been tough. ‘We have had to look at ourselves and it was good to get the win against Morecambe, that was a step of getting wins under our belt again and Fulham was a tough, tough game.
‘We went on that run when we were doing very well and you can’t let complacency set in and then we went on a run of not doing well.
‘But that’s football, it is up and down, and we have shown character recently to really dig in and work hard first and foremost in training, going up against each other and having that competition and knowing that we need to work hard and be as team to get the three points.
‘I think we are getting back to where we were before and that is the positive we can take out of it.’