Life is full of mysteries and pondering them is part of the joy of being human. Are we living in a simulation? Is there life on Mars? What is Mason Mount for?
Transfer business between Manchester United and Chelsea is firmly in its banter era after the Jadon Sancho loan debacle and the objectively ridiculous fee paid by the Blues for Alejandro Garnacho.
But two years ago United stumped up £55m for a player with one year left on his contract, winning a closely-fought race for Chelsea’s golden boy only for him to leave the million-dollar question still unanswered in his third season in Manchester – why?
Yet to get started
Mount arrived in the same transfer window as Andre Onana and Rasmus Hojlund, two players whose colourful time at Old Trafford is already the stuff of minor myth.
In the year 2099 studious fans will gather in the echoing vestibules of New New Trafford to reminisce about that mad error-prone goalkeeper, that Danish striker’s infamous four-league-goals season. Right now, it’s hard to imagine Mount’s name being remembered in those conversations, much less discussed.
Sadly, the raw data backs it up. At time of writing he has played roughly half as many minutes in just over two years at Old Trafford as he managed in one season-long loan spell at Derby County.
He has four goals and two assists in 51 games, meaning his goal contributions are outnumbered by his yellow card count (seven) and astonishingly he has played the full 90 minutes just once in United colours.
Injury crises
The trumpeting elephant in the room, however, is Mount’s injury record, which has seen him sitting on the sidelines at least as often as he’s been available for matchday squads.
It is desperately tempting to slam United’s recruitment staff yet again, this time for signing a live specimen for the medical department to practice on rather than addressing the midfield chasm, but it’s difficult.
Mount missed more games through injury in his first season at Old Trafford than his entire senior Chelsea career (as per transfermarkt) so was certainly not doomed to the treatment table from the start.
What’s more, high-energy pressing has always been a huge part of his game, so his body wasn’t put under any more strain at United than anywhere else; Lady Luck simply took a dislike to the transfer and did her best to undermine it.
Mixed reception
In fact, she was not alone – many United fans were left deeply underwhelmed as the club spent big on a player seen as an uninspiring solution to a problem that didn’t exist.
Chelsea fans loved him as an academy boy done good, and he scooped up more than one Player of the Season award for the club, but he arrived at Old Trafford already facing an uphill battle.
Being handed the storied number 7 shirt was an indication of the esteem in which he was held, but so far that hasn’t worked out with the player more Memphis than Beckham.
He is, however, a favourite of managers everywhere. Erik ten Hag was delighted to capture a player supposedly also coveted by Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola, one who had Thomas Tuchel in raptures and for whom Ruben Amorim was thought to have big plans.
Now or never
However you slice it, this season is make or break for Mount at United. Now 26 years old, the Englishman should be hitting his prime years and simply cannot afford to sit on the fringes any longer.
The Red Devils have thick enough skin to allow a £55m man to play a bit-part role, and Omar Berrada’s unforgiving approach to players who don’t perform within two years of arrival should have alarm bells sounding for him.
That Bruno Fernandes, for whom Mount was essentially an expensive understudy, has been shuffled back should open the door for solid game time; that Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha were brought in for big bucks makes things more complicated.
He is still to complete a full 90 this season, but has at least made it onto the field for five of United’s six games so far and chipped in with an assist in the ill-fated Carabao Cup trip to Grimsby.
Signs of life
The player seems better suited to Amorim’s system than Ten Hag’s, and has shown himself a real asset when driving a high press, while his work on the ball feels more assured than in previous years.
He somehow seems to be there when United play well without demonstrably doing much to make it happen, but this isn’t enough to justify dropping a more exciting talent to the bench.
The hope is that this article ages like milk after a standout season from the Portsmouth-born midfielder but the reality is that the odds are stacked against him at Old Trafford now.
He hasn’t had a fair crack of the whip, but then that’s top-level football for you. In the words of Coldplay, nobody said it was easy – but no-one said it would be so hard.
Featured image by Shaun Botterill via Getty Images
Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social
Joe Ponting
Joe has spent more than half his life writing about football and all of it following United. As a child he told a doctor his name was ‘Paul Scholes’, but could never pick a pass like him no matter how much he tried.
