Man Utd ‘schoolboy’ to anger Keane, Bellingham and everyone else by starting for England vs Croatia
It’s June 17 and Mason Mount is starting under Thomas Tuchel in England’s first game at the World Cup against Croatia while Jude Bellingham, Morgan Rogers, Cole Pamer and Phil Foden watch from the bench or from home and everyone is absolutely fine with it.
An awful lot has to happen between now and then for that to happen, including the vast majority of people accepting that Mount is in fact not a man stealing a living at the highest level but a very fine footballer who can do more than run, press and tackle. More performances like we saw against Wolves and they will have little option but to begrudgingly accept that reality. He was really, really good.
As if conceding a goal against a Wolves side that had gone 43 days and a full six games without finding the back of the net in the Premier League could be more damning for Manchester United and Ruben Amorim, it had been coming.
41.2% of the final 15 minutes of the first half took place in Manchester United’s own third. Jhon Arias smashed a ball across the penalty area a couple of yards in front of Jorgen-Strand Larsen. United’s defenders gave Jean-Ricner Bellegarde time and space to cut in and shoot over the bar from 20 yards, and then more space for him to equalise from bang in the middle of the box.
David Moller Wolfe had caught Amad Diallo sleeping at the back post before chesting the ball down and cutting it back for Bellegarde, who looked the most likely for Wolves, apparently to all but those on the pitch for United, who opted to take his possible game-changing impact with a pinch of salt which proved costly.
Not for that long though, because Wolves are a defensive shambles.
United’s opener was a gift. Matheus Cunha fumbled with the ribbons with a limp, poorly directed pass before Bruno Fernandes arrived with the scissors to effectively unwrap the offering delivered by Andre, who tried to give the ball away with a pass before being caught in possession by Casemiro.
That was the clearcut error in a litany of them from an absurdly open Wolves side constantly requiring heroes to rescue them, whether that be Sam Johnstone pulling off a save or a centre-back clearing the ball off the line.
It’s unsustainable and the limited pressure United applied in a first half which saw them record more shots (14) than any away game since 2003/2004 – save for a game against Everton in 2008 (15) when Cristiano Ronaldo, Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney were their front three – went up a couple of notches in the second half, perhaps after some strong half-time words from Amorim at them drawing with this football team,  as United found their attacking rhythm.
Mount was superb in response to Roy Keane branding him a “schoolboy” for having no “presence” off the bench against West Ham last time out.
Creator-in-chief Bruno Fernandes largely took a backseat as Mount combined his archetypal energy and work-rate with a near-perfect performance on the ball, zipping passes into teammates or in behind the Wolves defence for Cunha or Mbeumo to run onto. He’s always everywhere, but was doing everything, everywhere at Molineux in what was surely his best game for Manchester United.
It’s also arguably one of few good ones in a Red Devils career blighted by injury, poor form and the comes-with-the-territory dip in performance almost all players to have made the move to Old Trafford have suffered in the last decade.
“You go back to stats as an attacking player,” Keane said on Mount back in October. “At United, his stats when he’s played are really poor. It’s not as if you’re going, yeah I can see he’s getting a lot of assists, his stats are really poor.”
He made it three goals in his last four Premier League starts here, with his strike coming between Mbeumo’s tap-in on the break and Fernandes’ penalty. And it was beautiful.
Fernandes’ clipped pass over the Wolves defence was delightful and spoke to a burgeoning relationship building between him and Mount, as the former Chelsea man spotted his captain with time and space on the ball, made his dart in behind and volleyed the ball past Johnstone with ease and authority.
It was a performance we’ve not seen from Mount since his heady days under Thomas Tuchel at Chelsea, when the playmaker played a starring role in the Blues winning the Champions League in 2021.
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And Tuchel, waiting for any excuse to call up a guy branded as something of a teacher’s pet in their time together at Stamford Bridge, won’t need too many more performances like this to grant him a spot in his World Cup squad despite the absurd competition for places in his position.
“He said to me, there’s no guarantees, even though you played for me,” Mount said after Tuchel rang him to say why he wasn’t in the England squad in July. “But it gives you more, you want to push even more to be able to be back in the squad.”
We can only dream of the degree with which teeth with be gnashed should Mount become Tuchel’s starting No.10 given the response to the England manager preferring Rogers over Bellingham. The overwhelmingly apathetic response to Mount playing for the Three Lions even during his absolute peak days at Chelsea suggests Gianni Infantino and his Donald Trump love-in wouldn’t then be the sole cause of World Cup boycotts.
We and he are still a long way off that dream. This was just one game, against Wolves, who are terrible. But if Mount can reproduce this display and get himself into the groove he found under Tuchel at Chelsea, the pair may yet be reunited on the biggest football stage.
