Mason Mount has taken a swipe at Toni Kroos after the German said he ‘never lost sleep’ over an opponent in the build-up to Chelsea’s Champions League semi-final victory over Real Madrid.
Thomas Tuchel’s side booked their place in the Istanbul showpiece against Premier League rivals Manchester City thanks to a 2-0 win over Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night.
Chelsea, who took a 1-1 draw away from the Spanish capital in the first leg, inflicted further damage on Zinedine Zidane’s side in west London thanks to goals from Timo Werner and Mount.
Speaking before the game, Kroos insisted he was not fearful of Chelsea’s attacking threat and said: ‘In my 15 years playing football, I never lost sleep.
‘They showed in Madrid that they play as a team. They have a German coach so that doesn’t surprise me. They defend well and have pace up front, those are their strengths.’
But Mount hit back at full-time of the second leg and insisted that both Kroos and Real Madrid ‘need to lose sleep over us as a team.’
The England international told CBS Sports: ‘I saw one of their players say before that he doesn’t lose sleep over individuals.
‘But as a team, they need to lose sleep over us as a team. We give so much, we defend for our lives.
‘You saw that in not many chances that we gave away. We are solid and we need to keep that going.’
Mount also stressed that Chelsea, who are closing in on a Champions League and FA Cup double, have ‘won nothing yet’ and hailed the performance of his team but also insisted they cannot afford to get too ahead of themselves.
‘I can’t put into words. Great performance tonight,’ he told BT Sport.
‘It was a tough, tough game. They’re going to come and give it everything but we worked hard.
‘We should’ve probably had about five! But the most important thing is we won tonight. We want to go into every game winning it.
‘We gave everything and we had that desire to win first half. We had a couple of opportunities where we won the ball and should’ve scored but we got the one late on and it’s great.
‘We haven’t won nothing yet. Hopefully we’ve got two massive cup finals and hopefully we can win.’
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