Declan Rice has revealed his role in Mason Mount's second goal for the England national team.
The Chelsea midfielder scored what proved to be the winner in the Three Lions' UEFA Nations League win over Belgium at Wembley Stadium on Sunday evening with a deflected effort.
It was Mount's first home goal for England since making the step up to the senior team and he has clearly been listening to advice from Rice who has encouraged him to shoot more.
"I thought he (Mount) worked excellently all night. That's a position that's really hard to play in a 5-2-3 because he's always scanning, always pressing and he thoroughly deserved his goal," Rice said, as quoted by the Times.
"I said to him, 'You've got to do that more often — don’t think about passing it around the box, get your shots off because you never know what's going to happen.'
"He might have laid that ball off, the ball wouldn't have gone in the back of the net.
"So, delighted to see my best mate score again for England and hopefully I can pop up with one soon.
"I'm due one."
Rice's advice for Mount comes after he was heavily tipped to become a teammate of his best mate at Chelsea during the summer transfer window.
However, despite holding an interest in Rice, the Blues never put in a formal bid as they were unable to move on other players permanently to raise funds.
With that said, as revealed by football.london, one of Marina Granovskaia's next two Chelsea transfer priorities to complete Frank Lampard's squad is to sign a defensive midfielder.
And the top target for Lampard is Rice.
For now, Rice's advice could be key for Mount in the coming weeks as he looks to hold on to his place in the Blues XI following the return to fitness of Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech.
