Man Utd told Chelsea flop can become their own Erling Haaland

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Robin Bairner | Chief Editor

Accredited football journalist and editor covering the game since 2006

Manchester United have been told that if they sign Chelsea striker Nicolas Jackson, they could find their own version of Erling Haaland.

While Haaland has terrorised Premier League defences since arriving at Manchester City from Borussia Dortmund, Jackson has not had that same impact with the Blues and spent last season on loan at Bayern Munich.

But with United short of depth in the centre-forward area, they have been told by former midfielder Quinton Fortune that he has the type of potential that could see him develop into a prolific Premier League scorer.

Current ETV

Nicolas Jackson

F (C)

Chelsea

Nicolas Jackson

F (C)

Chelsea

€35.7M

ETV Range

€32.1M - €39.3M

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United need a little bit more… Jackson might give it to them

“Nicolas Jackson is an option for Manchester United,” the former South Africa international told Premier Bet.

“I see him as more of a goal poacher. If you look at the purest of the pure footballers, he’s not a striker to bring it down and play it like Dimitar Berbatov or Wayne Rooney or Dwight Yorke but that’s what I like about him too. He’s just an out-an-out striker. He doesn’t really care about anything else apart from getting into the box and getting on the end of whatever service he’s provided, and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s still the hardest part of the game.

“He’s almost like Erling Haaland at times and he shouldn’t get involved in the play so much. Tell the other guys they can do all the hard work and I’ll score the goals. Whether he’s right for United, I don’t know about that, but you don’t play for Chelsea and Bayern Munich if you haven’t got something about you.

“I just think United need a little bit more. I do like Nicolas Jackson but think United need the best of the best. If you're going to buy a top-top striker, you must go and buy Erling Haaland or Harry Kane. Just be absolutely ruthless. Sign the player. Get them in the box. Give me the goals. No nonsense.”

Jackson a dramatically undervalued striker

While Jackson’s reputation in the Premier League is not among the top strikers, the data is very much in his favour.

Since January 2020, only 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 greatest 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.”

While signing Jackson is unlikely to be a move to win popular acclaim at Man Utd, a deal may be among the smartest they could conclude.