Graham Potter has revealed why he didn’t bring Mason Mount off the bench as Chelsea lost 2-0 at home to Aston Villa on Saturday night.
The 24-year-old returned after a month out from a pubic bone injury to make the bench but wasn’t called upon as Ollie Watkins and John McGinn secured the victory at Stamford Bridge.
In the backdrop of his increasing exile are stagnant contract negotiations that have led to talk of a move away to Liverpool, Manchester United or Bayern Munich.
Speaking after the match, Potter explained why he didn’t look to Mount to turn the match: “With Mason, I just felt we were there in the game.
“We made some attacking subs and wanted to see how it all landed. Mason is coming back and only had a couple of days training.
Potter went on to explain why he picked Marc Cucurella and Reece James as centre-backs, two players who typically prefer to play at full back, adding: “We wanted to attack, we wanted to use Marc and Reece as two laterals, that’s where the space would be and they can construct attacks well.
“I thought we got some good opportunities from an attacking perspective, won the ball back, high as well. I think we had a 1v1 with Mischa [Mudryk] a couple of times.
“It’s an error for the first goal and whenever there’s an error there’s always something you can do better.”
He also confirmed that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Hakim Ziyech, Denis Zakaria and David Datro Fofana were all simply left out of his squad, only Edouard Mendy not making it through injury.
Meanwhile, he pointed to the fact his side had 27 shots on Saturday but couldn’t score, their most attempts without netting in a league match since 2014.
With so many chances created and wasted, Potter didn’t doubt his players’ effort on Saturday night: “If you look at the stats of the game, apart from the most important stat, there’s a lot there that says we did a lot well but ultimately the two boxes are the most important area and that’s where we’ve come up short.
“First half I thought we had a couple of opportunities, we won it back high and created a 1v1 situation pretty early in the game.
“Obviously the goal is a blow for us. We need to do better than that. Of course, it’s difficult then, you’re 1-0 down at home. I thought the team gave everything, I thought the intention of the team was there.
“You could tell by the amount of times we got in their box, the shots we had, there was a positive intent but the scoreline is painful for us.”
