Every defeat has its scapegoat – sometimes multiple – and this week Nicolas Jackson in the one being targeted by fans and journalists who watched Chelsea crash out of the FA Cup this weekend.
The reason is obvious – he missed some clear chances to win his team the game. It is also acting as a bit of a referendum on his signing overall, which is proving to be one of the more divisive in recent history.
An article in the Daily Mail sums it all up nicely, and also has some interesting information about his future.
They claim that Chelsea were willing to decide their summer transfer plans based on his form this season, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious he’s not going to cut it.
“Following Saturday’s defeat, conversations around whether an elite striker must be signed returned. It is understood the club planned to sign a forward in the summer unless a current player was able to establish they could carry the burden, or a collection of players could contribute to an elite level. That question would appear to remain unanswered,” Scott Trotter wrote.
What next for Jackson and Chelsea
Certainly the forward is too good and has too much potential to give up on. He will at the very least be a strong option next season, as a rotation option with another forward, or even on the left wing, where we’ve seen him do well this season.
But it’s becoming increasingly obvious that his audition to be our main goalscorer for the next decade is not going well – it was always going to be hard to pull off, but Jackson has shown perhaps even more rawness and lack of scoring instinct than some suspected.
Certainly any hopes we could de-prioritise signing a striker are looking dashed now. We can’t go into another season with just Jackson and the ghost of Christopher Nkunku up top.
