What Mason Mount told Harvey Vale as Frank Lampard Chelsea transfer promise realised

Before the summer of 2019, if you had told anyone inside or out of Chelsea that in under two years, an academy graduate would have a defining say in a Champions League final, you might have received some chuckles.

Any further back, and it would have seemed fanciful. Although a section of supporters are concerned that the club may be open to passing up on some existing academy talent, it is beneficial to gauge how much progress has been made in a short space of time.

The pretty transformative summer of 2019 when Frank Lampard replaced Maurizio Sarri will mostly be defined by its influence in opening the door for the likes of Mason Mount.

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Mount, along with Reece James, Tammy Abraham, Fikayo Tomori and Billy Gilmour, all enjoyed their proper breakthroughs into Chelsea's first team, all in different ways adding fresh energy into what could have proved a testing season.

The next batch of academy talent looking to breakthrough will hopefully be inspired by Mount's meteoric rise, showing proof that there can be a very fruitful path at Stamford Bridge. One of those is Harvey Vale, currently preparing for England's U19 European Championship final with Israel on Friday night.

Vale told media that Mount had offered advice to the 18-year-old before this summer's tournament in Slovakia.

"We saw him (Mount) at St George's (Park) a couple of weeks back when we had our pre-camp, and he gave me some words of advice on how to deal with the pressure and the tournament and stuff like that. So he's been good to me."

Vale also went on to detail the high levels expected in Chelsea's academy and the positive environment it has cultivated. "As soon as you