Mason Mount held direct talks last Friday with Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly, and the meeting was reportedly positive as the club and player seek to come to a conclusion about his future.
The Chelsea midfielder has been the subject of much transfer discussion in recent months, with Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal all linked with signing Mount in the summer window.
Mount has just a year left on his contract at the end of this season and has rejected multiple proposals of an extension at Stamford Bridge, the club's offers reportedly not matching his wage demands.
As one of the squad's lower earners, Mount feels he isn't remunerated fairly at Chelsea and is therefore exploring all options, which includes a move elsewhere in the Premier League. Despite having won Chelsea's Player of the Year award in 2021 and 2022, Mount earns £80,000 per week, considerably less than the wave of new faces that have recently arrived at the club.
Chelsea, meanwhile, are unwilling to let him enter his final year at the club; either he signs a new deal or he will be sold for a cut-price transfer.
According to The Athletic, though, the talks between Mount and Boehly were positive, with the latter reiterating the club's desire to keep Mount at the club. While it became seemingly inevitable the 24-year-old would depart in the summer, "the dialogue has been interpreted inside Chelsea as a positive development".
Mount joined Chelsea's youth academy aged six, and has since gone onto lift the Champions League with his boyhood side.
With such an influx of new stars at Chelsea, his game time has become fairly limited this season in comparison to previous campaigns, with his standards not quite hitting the same levels, too.
Consequently, Mount has lost his place in starting XI with England, meaning a move to a club like Liverpool, which is desperate for a midfielder of Mount's ilk, seemed likely. However, he could be staying in west London after all.
