Chelsea are selling their best player - and they don’t even realise it

Analysis

Robin Bairner | Chief Editor

Accredited football journalist and editor covering the game since 2006

Until Chelsea signed Joao Pedro, fans could be forgiven for thinking that there was a long-standing curse on the club’s centre-forwards.

Following the departure of Didier Drogba (the first time around) in 2012, strikers had come and gone at Stamford Bridge but none made a lasting impact. From the big-money move to sign Romelu Lukaku to the apparently shrewd decision to trigger Liam Delap’s release clause, the Blues had tried everything and yet nothing had worked.

But among the litany of strikers who have arrived at Stamford Bridge, there is one forgotten man who deserves a second chance – and who Chelsea might live to regret selling.

Nicolas Jackson has cut a frustrating figure since arriving in West London from Villarreal in the summer of 2023. His lack of discipline has been an overriding issue, with the final straw for previous boss Enzo Maresca coming when he was sent off four minutes after coming off the bench in a Club World Cup fixture against Flamengo.

He was shipped out on loan to Bayern Munich, where he played as a backup to Harry Kane. A return of one goal every 120 minutes on the park for the Bundesliga giants hints at the type of impact he can produce. Indeed, only Kane outperformed him in terms of Bundesliga goals per 90 minutes last term.

And yet, Chelsea appear willing to offload him this summer, with Tottenham and Aston Villa eager suitors.

Current ETV

Nicolas Jackson

F (C)

Chelsea

Nicolas Jackson

F (C)

Chelsea

€35.7M

ETV Range

€32.1M - €39.3M

View full profile

Nicolas Jackson: Chelsea sleeping on one of the world’s best talents

With a tendency to miss big opportunities and earn silly bookings for dissent, Jackson is unlikely to ever be a fan favourite yet there is also a significant upside to his game: his ability to consistently get into dangerous goal scoring positions.

Since January 2020, only Erling Haaland is better at getting into scoring positions from open play, according to Sky Sports, which shows that Jackson has 0.55xG per 90 – ahead of any other Premier League player with at least 5000 minutes.

The analysis of SciSports echoes this, further suggesting that Jackson is one of the Premier League’s great untapped talents.

Remarkably, Jackson is rated higher than any other player at Chelsea by the data analytics firm, whose ratings are based on hundreds of in-game data points. Using these, they assign a player a SciSkill figure – the higher the better.

Jackson scores 120.6. This makes him the fifth-best centre-forward in the world, according to SciSports’ analysis. He trails only Harry Kane, Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe and Marcus Thuram.

So why didn’t Bayern want to keep him? In fact, manager Vincent Kompany did.

“Kompany is convinced of Jackson's abilities and would have liked to keep him in Munich. But he is too expensive. Kompany has made it clear internally that he would like to keep Jackson, but obviously at a certain price that Chelsea might not accept,” Lothar Matthaus told Sky.

The Belgian, meanwhile, explained: “The guy has not done anything wrong, he trained extremely well, he won the AFCON… When Harry Kane plays in your position, or Michael Olise, or Luis Diaz, it is a bit difficult. There is nothing more.”

Chelsea have to trust the numbers

There’s a widespread agreement that Chelsea’s policy needs to sharpen up if the club is to regain its former glory.

Selling Jackson, though, is a cop out. It’s an easy decision based on the unanimity of the support against him. The underlying numbers show that he’s a quality striker, and certainly not someone the Chelsea board want to see doing well at Spurs or Villa.

Keeping him might be the hard decision, but it would also be the correct one.

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