Thomas Tuchel and his players face Udinese in a friendly at the Serie A side’s Dacia Arena tonight in a game that can be watched live and for free in selected countries on the official Chelsea website and The 5th Stand app. Click here for more information.

It will be our final runout before the Premier League opener away at Everton next weekend and follows a fortnight in the USA which saw the team in action in Las Vegas, Charlotte and Orlando.

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While on-field results were mixed during the Stateside tour, there is no doubt our time in America was a productive one and Mount was thrilled at the opportunity to travel from west to east coast reconnecting with the Chelsea supporters on that side of the Atlantic.

‘It’s good to be home but the tour was unbelievable,’ the midfielder said this week. ‘We were there for two weeks and got a lot of stuff done, being able to see the American supporters that came out and supported us for the three games.

'Every time we were at training, they turned up. It was brilliant to see them and a lot of hard work was done as well.’

A stunning strike from Mount helped secure an opening victory over Club America before we drew against Charlotte and were then beaten by Arsenal.

While that heavy defeat to our London rivals in Florida was hard to take, our number 19 insists that there are more important things to focus on at this stage of the summer.

‘We’re lucky it’s pre-season because these are the type of games that you are learning from and using them,’ he continued.

‘Obviously the results are the main thing and you want to win but you’re using them for the minutes and to gain that match sharpness that you’ve missed over the last couple of months.

‘They’re games that we’re going to learn from and you never want to be losing 4-0. It’s the little moments in games that you learn from and the mistakes that we made that you want to cut out. We still have some time to nail that down and be ready for the first game of the season.’

It wasn’t all hard work and no play for the squad in the States, with such a prolonged period away together strengthening bonds. Downtime was spent as a group in the team hotel, where evening table tennis tournaments brought added competition.

‘Me, Marcos and Jorgi did a little tournament for about two hours after one of the days and we ended up getting told to go to bed because we were playing for that long!’ Mason admitted.

Trevoh Chalobah proved particularly adept with the bat and ball, while Tuchel even got involved himself when challenging new signing Raheem Sterling to an entertaining match.

The focus now returns to the football field and our final game before next weekend’s Premier League curtain-raiser. Udinese finished 12th in Serie A last season and you can read more about Le Zebrette here.

For Mount, the target is to bank a full match in the tank and return to winning ways, to aid conditioning and confidence before the return flight back to London.

‘It’s a game we’re going to use to gain more physical involvement and improvement but you also want to win and that’s what we want, to get back on that road to winning,’ he added.

‘It’s going to be a brilliant game. You know what the fans are like in Italy, they’re top. It will be good to get a full 90 minutes under the belt so I’m looking forward to it.’

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