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This article is part of Football FanCast's Transfer Focus series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent transfer news...

According to the Evening Standard, Chelsea have opened talks with midfielder Mason Mount over signing a new contract at the club.

What's the word?

The report claims the Blues' impending appointment of Frank Lampard as their next manager has convinced many of the club's younger players to sign new deals to stay at Stamford Bridge.

It claims that negotiations between Chelsea and Mount are likely to step up when he returns to pre-season training later this month and that the club want to tie him down until 2024.

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Having worked under Lampard last year whilst at Derby, the upcoming season could finally see Mount seize his opportunity at Chelsea and become the goal-scoring midfielder his manager was renowned for being during his glorious career.

Like manager, like player

211. The number of goals Lampard scored for Chelsea, whilst he was also one of the finest all-round midfielders in the game. To say Mount was learning from the best last year would be quite the understatement.

Indeed, speaking about Lampard after he was called up to the England senior team back in October, Mount said: "He’s obviously got over 100 caps so he said to see if I can break that. He's given me loads of advice so far and I'm just trying to take it all in. It's a long season so I'm going to learn so much off him. If I can achieve half of what he has I will be very happy."

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Despite missing out on promotion with Derby, Mount was a key figure in the side's run to the play-off finals in the Championship, scoring 11 goals and providing a further six assists across all competitions. To put that into context, Chelsea's favoured midfield trio of Jorginho, N'golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic scored a combined total of seven.

His former teammate at Derby, Tom Huddlestone, also remarked about the comparisons between Mount and Lampard. He said: "His goal scoring and finishing is similar to the manager's. The manager wasn't too much of a dribbler, but I think Mason has got that in his locker, too. He can face up to a midfielder and drop a shoulder and go past him. That's the only difference with the manager."

So after years of trying to search for the 'new Lampard', it appears the Blues have had the man right under their nose this whole time.