No England guarantee for Mount despite Tuchel chat

Manchester United's Mason Mount has spoken to his old boss Thomas Tuchel about his international aims but knows their shared history is no guarantee of an England recall.

Mount delivered the brilliant defence-splitting pass to Kai Havertz that led to the German scoring the winner for Tuchel's Chelsea against Manchester City in the 2021 Champions League final.

It is the high point of Tuchel's managerial career, in which he has won 11 trophies, including the shortened version of Fifa's Club World Cup.

Tuchel has now been given the job of eclipsing that by guiding England to World Cup glory.

That must feel a long way off for Mount, who won the most recent of his 36 caps in the World Cup quarter-final defeat by France in December 2022.

Since his £55m move to United in 2023, the 26-year-old has spent most of the time battling injury and poor form.

Nevertheless, Tuchel still took the time to get in touch with Mount after he had been confirmed as Gareth Southgate's successor.

"He called me, said he's calling a lot of players and just wanted to catch up," said Mount.

"I don't know how many players he called, 40 or 50 maybe. But it was good to see his face, good to catch up with him and good to speak to him.

"He looked like he had loads of energy, like I remember, and was bang up for the new role. He was very excited and it was good to see what he was preparing."

Mount's most recent England call-up was in March 2023 but he had to pull out for fitness reasons.

"It's such a big honour to play for your country," said Mount. "Any opportunity you get to put that shirt on is amazing and I'd love to have that opportunity again.

"But I think with England it's totally different now because of the amount of people he can pick.

"He said to me 'there's no guarantees, even though you played for me'. But you want to push even more to get back into the squad."