Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino feels like everyone needs to lay off Nicolas Jackson and give him more time.
Nicolas Jackson, who’s been a big talking point around Stamford Bridge during the first half of the season, joined Chelsea from Villarreal in the summer for £32million (The Guardian).
The young striker has a decent return of eight goals in 22 Blues appearances so far, but the reality is that he’s missed a hatful of glorious goalscoring opportunities.
Aged 22, we’re seeing he’s got a lot of fantastic attributes, but he’s still far from the finished article.
Blues head coach Mauricio Pochettino has jumped to the defence of his player this week. He remains confident that Jackson is a huge talent with massive potential.
Speaking about Jackson, Pochettino said via The Evening Standard: “We are putting too much focus on him and we need to give him time. The fans were amazing with him.
“For sure, we need to give him time but he already scored. It is not that he doesn’t score, and if we check in the past about how different strikers arrive in England and perform in the first season, we are now months into it, and he has scored goals like [Didier] Drogba or [Jimmy Floyd] Hasselbaink.
“The player is young, coming from Spain after not playing so much. He is a very good prospect with potential but we are also playing for Chelsea.
“It is not the same as playing for a different club, with all my respect, but the pressure every time you touch the ball is to do something fantastic.
“That’s why little by little we will grow a little with our experience to perform better.”
Nicolas Jackson needs more time
Unfortunately, Chelsea’s position has meant they’ve possibly relied on Jackson more than they would have liked to.
It’s easy to forget the 22-year-old is still only a few months into his time in England, so perhaps some of the criticism fired his way is a bit over the top.
Speaking via talkSPORT (28/12 6:37am) this week, Dean Saunders suggested that Jackson isn’t good enough to play for Chelsea.
We’d strongly disagree with the statement above. However, we’d much prefer Jackson learning his craft this season as a squad option, but the competition dictates there’s a lot more pressure on him.