Derby County role in forging Chelsea success in Champions League cannot be underrated: View | OneFootball

Derby County are currently in League One, looking for promotion back to the Championship after two years away.

The Championship has been the league that many people will know Derby for playing in recent times, having spent 14 years in the Championship up until their relegation in 2022.

The Rams have, during that extended period in the second tier, put together various pushes for promotion that ultimately ended in failure.

Two play-off final losses occurred in 2014 and 2019, with Derby fans leaving Wembley heartbroken having been one game away from the promised land.

The 2018-19 season in particular had plenty of youngsters that Derby had on loan, joining through then-manager Frank Lampard’s connections.

The main player that starred during that campaign, which propelled him to go on to have the career at the highest level he currently has, was Mason Mount.

Mason Mount excelled at Derby County in first domestic loan stint

Mount, then 19 years old, signed for Derby on a season-long loan from Chelsea in July 2018.

He had spent the previous season on loan in the Netherlands with Vitesse Arnhem - a club used a lot by the Blues to help give young players experience - in his first spell away from Stamford Bridge.

He scored 14 goals and notched nine assists in 32 Eredivisie games, so a spell in the Championship was the necessary next step.

The attacking midfielder started off well straight away for the Rams, scoring on his debut in a win away at Reading on the opening day of the season.

After a strong first half of the season, Mount was sidelined for two months having suffered a hamstring injury in an FA Cup match against Accrington Stanley.

He would come back for the run-in and would be a major player in Derby reaching the play-offs, scoring his first senior hat-trick in England in a 4-0 win over Bolton Wanderers.

Upon finishing in the top six, Derby reached the play-offs and played rivals Leeds United, with the ill-feeling brewed following a spying session by the Whites to a Rams training session.

After losing in the first leg at Pride Park, Derby came back to win 4-2 at Elland Road, with Mount scored his final goal for the club as the Rams reached Wembley.

Unfortunately for Mount and Derby, they would lose to Aston Villa in the play-off final, with the dream of Premier League football falling at the last hurdle.

Mount’s Derby success led to him having a triumphant time at Chelsea

Having finished his loan at Derby, Mount came back to Stamford Bridge as a player ready for the first team.

Lampard, his manager at Derby, also joined Chelsea as their manager in the summer of 2019, so the two worked together again, and that probably worked to his advantage.

Mount was also handed a new five-year deal in July 2019, so he was a player that Chelsea saw as having a major future with the club - and that proved to be the case.

By the end of his first season, Mount became the first Chelsea academy graduate to make his first-team debut and make 50 appearances in the same season, and he also helped Chelsea reach the FA Cup final, where they lost to Arsenal.

His second season would get better, as he would win the club’s Player of the Year award, and it was a season where tould also win arguably the greatest trophy of all - the UEFA Champions League - under the guidance of Thomas Tuchel.

Mount's third season with Chelsea would see him win a second consecutive Player of the Year award.

Then in the summer of 2023, following a season where his impact waned, Mount would depart for Premier League rivals Manchester United for £55 million, where it hasn't quite gone to plan so far.

There is no doubt that though Mount has become a great player, and if it were not for his loan to Derby, he may never have become the player we know him to be today.