The Nicolas Jackson renaissance is well underway, and we’re starting to see great progress from the striker on the pitch as he racked up a couple more goals this weekend.
ChicagoDmitry on Twitter posted a radar of his stats showing his season compared to last season, when he was still at Villareal. While a freakish late run of goals for the Yellow Submarine boosted his non-penalty goals per game record, everything else is getting better. His hold up play, his defensive efforts, even his aerial ability has levelled up.
The £32m we paid for him is starting to look a bit like a bargain at this point. He’s got 16 goals in all competitions, not at all bad for a forward who is known more for his linkup play that his ruthlessness. Since he returned from the Africa Cup of Nations at the start of February, he’s got 6 goals and 3 assists in 12 starts.
You can see the full radar embedded here:
The conclusions from an important improvement
So what we can conclude from all this is that the numbers are confirming what we’re seeing on TV and in the stadium. The striker was as raw as they come – he hadn’t even played a full La Liga season yet when we bought him.
But the advantage of buying a raw player is that they can improve rapidly, and the numbers back up that improvement. Moving to a tougher league (and playing in a team that has barely functioned at times) should mean a drop in some areas. Instead, Jackson is level or better almost all around.
Those who kept faith are now being rewarded. He’s never going to be a lethal finisher, but he can yet be a striker with so much to offer that the weaknesses in his game are well worth carrying.
This is what I’ve been saying for at least six months now whilst SuperFrank and so many others had the pitchforks and torches out for Jackson!
For anyone paying attention to his movement on the field and the underlying data it has been evident since the first months of the season that Jackson is an ELITE attacker in terms of creating chances for himself and his teammates. His sense of how to move without the ball, what runs to make and WHEN are exceptional—the polar opposite of Mudryk! The only thing that’s been missing has been his consistency and composure in front of goal. But that’s always been an area where you EXPECT a young player to improve with hard work and good coaching.
What’s nothing short of laughable is how quickly the likes of SuperFrank are changing their tune and jumping on the Nicolás Jackson bandwagon now that he’s begun showing that little bit of confidence in front of goal! My question is: Where have you been all this time??? Why haven’t you supported the lad through thick and thin instead of jeering him? Why weren’t you looking at the underlying numbers (which showed his xG have been elite all season long) instead of bad-mouthing him as a failure for months now? It’s a sad statement on how fickle the fan base can be (and how mindlessly “Chelsea News” feeds into the fans’ preferred narratives) that they’ve spent so much time bashing Jackson. Even in his worst moments he never really deserved it, and now that he’s hit a run of form those fans hardly deserve him.