Nicolas Jackson just underwent the kind of 5 minute mini drama that sums up his season at Chelsea so far.
First he was played in nicely by Conor Gallagher with just the keeper to beat. Bread and butter for a Premier League number 9. But Jackson isn’t a Premier League level number 9 (at least not yet) and he lofted the ball wide of the goal entirely.
He lay in the goal looking broken and defeated.
But just moments later, it looked like he had made up for it. A hopeful long ball caught the Crystal Palace defence flat footed and Jackson nipped in and scuffed the ball in first time.
The problem was that for what must be the 2387th time this season, the Senegal striker had strayed offside. It was only his knee, by a few inches, but it was enough to rule him off.
Jackson goes back to looking defeated – as do Chelsea as a whole.
Jackson will never be a Premier League No.9. Reality is, as Craig Burley stated, Jackson is not a Premier League player, period.
As usual, clueless Boehly has purchased an absolute dud. Jackson is a park footballer that belongs in the amateur leagues. He is not of professional football standard, let alone EPL standard.
Jackson will get Pochettino sacked if Pochettino continues to play him. Jackson needs to be sold off to whatever club, for whatever Boehly is offered, even League 1 or 2. Just get rid of him in the January transfer window.
With all do respect, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Go to FBref and look up the list of EPL #9s not named Haaland who have more goals. Hint: It’s really short. Indeed, Jackson’s non-penalty goals per 90 minute rank him in the 94 percentile among all forwards.
While all of the focus is on Jackson’s misses (and there’s no denying he’s had some), all of these bandwagon Jackson critics ignore the fact that he has an UNCANNY ability to show up at the right place at the right time. That’s not luck. It’s a skill that precious few players possess.
Jackson is still very young and inexperienced and he’s bound to improve as a finisher (just look at the quality on the goal he had called back for offsides). And if you want to kick him to the curb then who do you propose to replace him with? Probably Osimhen (at a cost of +100m pounds), and yet you’re already shrieking about a potential sale of Gallagher to fund it. You can’t have it both ways, lol!
It’s pretty simple. We don’t need Osimhen because we don’t need to replace Jackson and, therefore, we don’t need to sell Gallagher! We DO need to be patient with this extraordinarily young squad. But for our lack of a world class keeper, we have the talent necessary at every position provided we can get everyone healthy and gain some more experience. But “supporters†need to be a lot less critical and a lot more…supportive. Belittling and bemoaning the inconsistency of a young team is infantile, not to mention pointless—especially when, as with Jackson, it’s not even grounded in reality (or data!).
You have said it all bro, can’t say it any better
Jackson is a joke, he is not serious.