Chelsea could end up embarrassed by Mason Mount's move to Manchester United

Mason Mount celebrates with the UEFA Champions League trophy during the UEFA Champions League Final between Manchester City and Chelsea FC at Estadio do Dragao on May 29, 2021 in Porto, Portugal. (Photo by Matthew Ashton - AMA/Getty Images) 

Chelsea must hope and pray they never see anywhere near the £5 million in add-ons that finally got Mason Mount’s move to Manchester United over the line.

And anybody in blue who thinks Chelsea would have been crazy to match the £250,000-a-week, which could rise to £300,000 with bonuses, that Mount will earn at United might just want to cast their mind back to the infamous Ashley Cole line.

Cole was castigated for writing in his autobiography that he almost swerved off the road when he heard that Arsenal were willing to offer him ‘only’ £55,000-a-week.

But he was worth every penny to Chelsea, where he won eight trophies, including the Premier League title and the Champions League, and made himself a club legend in a blue shirt after spending all of his formative years in red.

Cole’s sale helped to prompt an era of relative mediocrity at Arsenal, who stopped winning trophies at just about the same time the club stopped paying the big bucks in salaries. Chelsea should be wary of such a warning from recent history when committing so fully to slashing their wage bill, as well as the size of the squad.

If Chelsea ever pocket that extra £5 million in add-ons, then Mount’s departure will not only have been an embarrassment, it will have been an unmitigated disaster.

Not all of the blame can be put on the current regime, as the owners who bought the club from Roman Abramovich inherited a situation in which Mount had two years remaining on his contract and had already started to feel undervalued.

But, crucially, the situation was never made better as negotiations passed between co-controlling owner Todd Boehly and co-sporting director Paul Winstanley, and things quickly unravelled to the point that Mount’s future ultimately became a business decision with Chelsea not wanting to risk losing him for free next summer.

Selling a homegrown star to a rival can never be considered good business and for the add-ons to hit Chelsea’s bank account, Mount will not only have to play regularly for United but win regularly enough to at least lift a trophy or two in a red shirt. Even the thought will turn the stomachs of diehard blues.

Sure, it will be annoying for Chelsea fans if Mateo Kovacic wins a Premier League title, or perhaps even a treble, with Manchester City and it will no doubt provoke some anger if Kai Havertz is part of an Arsenal team that can get over the line.

Chelsea once poached Arsenal's prime-age talent...now it is the other way around. 

But Kovacic and Havertz were hired guns for Chelsea. They were not, as the banner made in Mount’s honour so perfectly stated, the boy who had a dream and for that dream to end with his best years ahead of him is an astonishing failure for everybody involved.

The £55 million fixed fee Chelsea are guaranteed to receive from Mount’s sale will be no compensation if he helps to revive United and an extra £5 million thank-you for a few trophies will feel like an almighty slap in the face.

Think of the hours, weeks, days and years put into the development of Mount since he joined Chelsea as a six-year-old and consider how he became the first academy graduate to nail down a first team place since John Terry.

I wanted him to be among the legends of the club, but thanks for everything 💙 pic.twitter.com/5LvwL2jqRH

— بُرهه (@brhH_5) July 5, 2023

Chelsea had developed a reputation for buying in talent and selling off their homegrown players, and Mount’s sale to United will prompt new questions over how much the club really value their own.

Why, for instance, were Chelsea prepared to pay Raheem Sterling more than £300,000-a-week, with Kalidou Koulibaly not far behind, but were reluctant to offer Mount, who has won two Player of the Year awards with the club, similar terms?

Just as Cole was initially accused of being greedy for joining Chelsea, there will be those who refuse to believe that Mount’s move to United is not money motivated given he stands to earn at least £78 million if he stays for the full term of his five-year contract that includes the option of an extra 12 months.

Both sides will have their story to tell, but there appears to be an acceptance in both camps that contract negotiations between Chelsea and Mount became a mess with talks breaking down more than once before the London club made the bizarre offer of a one-year extension in February.

Whoever thought that the best way to show Mount that he was really wanted would be to effectively ask for another 12 months to see if he was really worth what United, Liverpool and Arsenal were queuing up to pay him should hopefully have learned a lesson through this saga.

You would be hard pressed to find anybody who used to work at Arsenal willing to put their hand up to admit to deciding Cole was worth no more that £55,000-a-week and the sale of Mount may become a subject nobody ever accepts responsibility for at Chelsea - particularly if United ever have to write that £5 million cheque.

 
Matt Law