Mason Mount carried the pain of Manchester United’s worst season in more than half a century and a Europa League final defeat byTottenham on holiday to Spain and the golf course at Valderrama.
By the time the 26-year-old had enjoyed a family break in Ibiza and returned to pre-season at Carrington five weeks later, the smile was back on Mount’s face but he is determined to make up for the ‘hurt’ it cause him and his United teammates.
‘Quite a long time,’ he says with a rueful smile at United’s team hotel in Chicago when asked how long it took for the feeling to wear off. ‘Yes, it takes some time, for sure.
‘Because as a player, you’re just thinking about little things in the game. I started the game, so it was like “what could I have done in that situation?” Or “could I have made that pass better?” Any little thing that happens in the game, it’s like a bigger impact, especially in a final.
‘You don’t look too much into it because you would drive yourself crazy, looking into loads of detail. But it hurts and the whole season hurt.
‘I’ve had quite a few losses in finals, so it’s not easy. It never gets any easier, for sure. Finals are never easy to take when you lose. But when you’re in that next one, you remember that feeling.
Mason Mount said it took ‘quite a long time’ to get over Man United’s Europa League agony
The England international holidayed at a golf course at Valderrama, Cadiz, in South Spain
The Red Devils’ worst season in over 50 years ended with a 1-0 defeat in the final by Tottenham
‘But this is a new slate now. We’re looking forward and really using this pre-season to work on a lot of things that maybe we didn’t get enough time to last season. With the schedule, with the games, and obviously with the gaffer coming in halfway through, this period is so vital for us to work on things.’
After taking over in November, Ruben Amorim’s warning that a storm was coming proved horribly accurate as United hovered above the relegation zone before finishing 15th – the club’s worst campaign since going down in 1974. In January, Amorim described his team as probably the worst in United’s history.
‘As a player, you never want that,’ admits Mount. ‘I can just speak for myself personally, going away in the summer you’re always looking at what you can do better, how you can be better for your teammates and perform as a group, how we can all perform better.
‘Last season, it wasn’t good enough. We know that, but we’re kicking on now. We’re ready to put that wrong right. And from the first game of the season, it starts off pretty good (at home to Arsenal). A top first game so we’ll be ready for that when that comes around now.
‘I think it’s always difficult, a manager coming in halfway through a season. There were so many games and we didn’t have a pre-season to work on things and look at the shape. We obviously changed shape halfway through a season.
‘It’s difficult to adapt sometimes to those situations, and I think that could have played a part in that. With the games, we didn’t have loads of training time. We play a game and the next day is a recovery day. And then you build up to the next game.
‘We haven’t done loads of analysis of last season. We looked at a few areas that we can improve on, but this is a new season. It’s like wiping the slate clean. Coming into this season with a different kind of attitude and a feeling about it and we’re ready to go.
‘From day one of pre-season, it’s about standards and details within training, obviously on the pitch and off the pitch, and really focusing on us as a group and what we need to do to be better and to perform.
Mount insisted United are looking to use this summer to work on things and overturn their fortunes next season
Mount admitted that last season was poor but insisted that the players are keen to make it right
Mount said that achieving Champions League qualification in 2025-26 would be ‘amazing’
‘He (Amorim) is massive on details, the small improvements on the pitch or off the pitch, and he’s been really, really big on that. As a group, we know what we need to do in those areas because we need to be performing to the best of our ability.
‘It’s important with any new season to set new goals, especially coming off last season. As I said before, it’s the details. I think that in some of the games that kind of let us down where we conceded some goals and weren’t creating enough chances.
‘The set-pieces now in the Premier League are so big and teams are really, really focusing on that. I think at the beginning, we struggled with that a little bit and we conceded probably too many goals.
‘That affects games when they are so tight and you get a set-piece and you can see maybe from a corner, say, it has a big effect on the game and then you’re chasing it again. That happened to us quite a bit and that’s something that we obviously looked at already and trying to improve on.’
The disappointment of last season means United won’t play in Europe for only the second time in 35 years, and Mount believes that qualifying for the Champions League has to be the club’s main aim.
‘We obviously want to be back in Europe. I think that is a massive, massive thing for the club,’ he said. ‘I think that’s the focus. The Champions League would be amazing for us and as a group we want to be playing in that competition.
‘We know how difficult that is now in the Premier League. There are so many teams that are obviously investing and playing very good football at the moment. And as I’ve said many times, it’s the small details here and there that really affect that at the top of the league.’