Peter Crouch admitted Chelsea needed Mason Mount’s energy during last night’s frustrating Champions League defeat to Juventus.
Speaking on BT Sport, Crouch highlighted how much Mount’s absence affected his team’s performance in Turin.
The 22-year-old missed the European tie due to picking up an injury last week at home to Aston Villa.
Chelsea looked unusually incoherent against Juve, unable to form any kind of patterns or penetrating attacks.
They only mustered one shot on target all evening, a tame Romelu Lukaku attempt in the first half.
Juve also managed just the singular strike on goal, but that turned out to be the match decider.
Federico Chiesa crunched a wicked drive past Edouard Mendy mere seconds after the restart.
This knocked the wind out of Chelsea’s sails, if they hadn’t been blown away already.
Lukaku hardly touched the ball – 28 times according to WhoScored.com – limited by the surplus of service into his path.
Kai Havertz and Hakim Ziyech were tasked with the mission of feeding their strike, a duty they failed to complete.
“I thought Ziyech and Havertz were very disappointing,” criticised Crouch.
“I think Havertz reminds me of (Mesut) Ozil, he does things where it comes easy to him and he looks technically brilliant but he can also look lazy and laboured at times and he can frustrate you and I thought tonight they were frustrating.”
“He (Mount) has the same quality as those boys but there’s more urgency,” continued the former Liverpool forward.
“Tactically, he gets back in, he potentially works harder – he looks like he works harder. I think that’s the difference.”
There’s probably no question that Mount exerts more energy than his two flashier colleagues.
Wind him up and the battery lasts forever.
Ziyech and Havertz seemingly do not have this luxury, but this might just be down to the effortless manner they glide across the surface.
Unfortunately for Chelsea, they required a lot more effort yesterday against Juventus.
They also craved some ingenuity to unpick the Italian’s lock, precisely what Ziyech and Havertz were brought in for.
But they were mainly bystanders in the game, ineffective and indecisive.
What Thomas Tuchel would have wanted more than Mount’s liveliness was his ability to link midfield and attack.
That art of picking up spaces between the lines, shifting defences out of shape.
It was all too easy for Juve, despite the scoreline suggesting otherwise.
Chelsea will hope to have the Englishman back as soon as possible, as they aim to end this successive run of defeats.
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