For such a young player, Mason Mount already has an incredible collection of winners’ medals.
And now there is a chance to make it third time lucky in the FA Cup after Mount helped Chelsea clinch their place in another final back here at Wembley next month. Of course there is just the small matter of Liverpool standing in the way and they lost to Jurgen Klopp’s men in the Carabao Cup final in February.
But this will be the third season running that Mount - and indeed Chelsea - have reached the biggest domestic showpiece final in English football history.
They lost to Arsenal in 2020, to Leicester in 2021 and now have the chance to make amends and, despite everything and all the drama going on off the pitch, you would still never bet against Chelsea and Thomas Tuchel. This was a long way from being the five goal thriller of the Liverpool-Manchester City semi-final 24 hours earlier, but Chelsea still have a great knack of winning semi finals. Just five days on from their epic Champions League exit at Real Madrid, they somehow summoned up enough energy to deal with Crystal Palace.
Incredibly, Tuchel has now reached six finals (two FA Cups, the Champions League, Club World Cup, Super Cup and Carabao Cup) during his 16 months in charge at Stamford Bridge and few players have been more important than Mount. Mount, 23, has now played 45 games in all competitions this season, scored 12 goals and provided 14 assists while he has scored in three different semi finals: the FA Cup against Manchester United in 2020, Real Madrid in the Champions League in 2021 and now Palace.
That is some record and Mount did it in front of the watching England boss Gareth Southgate who would have also taken great delight in seeing another English midfielder in Ruben Loftus-Cheek open the scoring. Palace were brave, resolute and, for the first half at least, arguably the better team until Chelsea just took control and eventually wore down Patrick Vieira’s emerging and fast improving side.
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At the final whistle, Tyrick Mitchell looked absolutely distraught as his mistake - being caught in possession - was crucial in the build-up to Chelsea’s 65th-minute opener. But Romelu Lukaku went straight over to Mitchell at the final whistle to console the Palace left back. It was a nice moment made even more memorable as, just minutes before, the Chelsea substitute had missed an absolute sitter himself, skewing a shot onto the post from five yards.
There was respect between the two sets of players after a good contest which was pretty dull in the first half apart from Palace’s brilliantly loud and colourful fans. In fact, the only moment of note was Kai Havertz’s outrageous dive which earned him a booking as Palace defender Marc Guehi was nowhere near when the Chelsea forward went over. He should be ashamed. Chelsea had more possession and you could tell they were beginning to wear Palace down. Mitchell lost possession, Havertz broke into the box and his cross hit Guehi and the ball came back to Loftus-Cheek who rifled it home courtesy of a deflection.
Loftus-Cheek had a year at Palace on loan, that season got him into England’s World Cup squad in 2018 and, even though he was cup tied at Wembley, Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher will be hoping the same happens to him, after being denied a chance to play against his parent club. Eleven minutes later, it was 2-0 and game over. Timo Werner had another excellent game and is finally showing some consistency. Werner swapped passes with Mount who drove into the box and steered a low shot into the far corner. There was just time for Joachim Andersen to head wide for a late chance to set up a grandstand finish. Lukaku’s was an even bigger miss. But by then, the game had already been won.
