https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/article/mount-its-not-good-enough
Mount: It's not good enough
07 SEP 2022
Mason Mount has given an honest assessment of our defeat at Dinamo Zagreb
and says it is time for the players to look at their own performance and
start living up to the high standards expected at Chelsea again.
https://i.imgur.com/FQBBYfb.jpg
Mount was part of the side which suffered a 1-0 defeat away at Dinamo
Zagreb in our opening Champions League fixture of the season, in a game
which followed a familiar pattern during what has been a frustrating start
to the 2022/23 campaign in general for the Blues.
Despite dominating possession at the Stadion Maksimir, we weren't able to
find the opening goal and then struggled to create chances once the home
side had taken the lead through a counter-attack and began to sit even
further back to hold on to their narrow advantage.
'We have to be brutally honest with ourselves, it's not good enough,' said
Mount after the final whistle in Zagreb. 'It was the first game in the
Champions League, we needed to make a good start and I felt like we
started the game well, but we let it slip away and that's happened over
the last few games. So it's something we obviously need to look at.
'It's a massive disappointment. We know how big this competition is and
how much it means to us and what we've done in it over the last two years,
so to start like this is disappointing. But it's not over and it's all
about our reaction now going forward. The next few games are massive and
we have a home game next in this competition, so we need to turn it around
and that's on us.'
The 23-year-old was clearly unhappy with the result and the performance,
but was adamant he and his team-mates only have themselves to blame and
are the only ones who can fix the problems which led to them.
'We had opportunities in the first 20 minutes. We were creating, we had a
lot of domination with the ball, camped in their half. It was going to be
difficult to break them down at first but if we'd kept going I feel that
the goal would have come but there was a lack of concentration.
'It was too easy when we gave the goal away, we left ourselves open and
they made it 1-0. In any game we play it's very difficult at the level
we're playing at to get back into a game when you're 1-0 down, especially
in the Champions League.
https://i.imgur.com/J3zQfN3.jpg
Orsic opens the scoring on the counter
'We didn't take our chances, didn't have enough clear-cut chances and in
any game you play, especially in the Champions League, you're not going to
get loads of clear-cut chances. So you need to take them and the half
chances that come around, and obviously stay concentrated at the back
because once you switch off for 10 to five seconds they're on the
counter-attack and they score.
'The way we started the game we should have killed it off at the
beginning. If we take our chances, score some goals, then the game's done.
We let them feel that they were still in the game and once they got their
goal it's very difficult to get back into it.
https://i.imgur.com/dmyVvX4.jpg
The Chelsea players' disappointment was clear at the final whistle
'So we need to look at ourselves and our underperformance and come back
stronger, because it's really not good enough. But we're a team that
bounces back and we're strong. Obviously this is a moment in time when we
all need to get together and really look at where we can improve.'
When Mount talks of everyone getting through this tough moment together,
it's not just the team he's referring to, as he made clear when he was
asked if he had a message for the Chelsea supporters after this
disappointing defeat, especially those who made the long trip to Zagreb
for the game.
'That they need to stick with us and we'll keep going, trying our hardest
to stick at it. It's a difficult period but all we can do is keep working
hard and we're all together in this and we'll get ourselves out of this
period.'