Mason Mount withdrawn from England duty after all

Mason Mount has not featured for Chelsea since the end of February — four games missed in a row, twice as long as the previous longest spell he’s ever missed in his Chelsea senior career, incidentally — so it was a bit of a surprise to see him on the call-sheet for England duty for the current international break.

Chelsea head coach Graham Potter was just as surprised as anyone when he was quizzed about it, though he gave England boss Gareth Southgate the benefit of the doubt and chalked it up to a bit of miscommunication rather than any sort of budding strife between club and country.

“As a club, we will [seek clarity on what happened]. As far as I was aware, he wasn’t going to be available for us at the weekend. He needed a bit of time for his injury to settle down, which pretty much ruled him out of the England thing.

“[But] I don’t think there’s anything untoward at all, it’s more that sometimes these things can be named and there are still a couple of days where things can be changed. But as far as I was aware, from my selection perspective, he was unavailable for the weekend.”

-Graham Potter; source: The Athletic

Sure enough, after not playing for us, Mount has now been withdrawn from the England squad as well, joining Marcus Rashford and Nick Pope in that regard — both of whom picked up knocks over the weekend.

Hopefully young master Mason will be fit and ready to return after the international break. And then sign the thing, too.