Nicolas Jackson returned to starting for Chelsea last week after AFCON with a start against Aston Villa in the FA Cup replay.
It came after a few weeks of the team really missing his presence up top. But what surprised everyone was that, after all that, he came and played on the left wing.
Nobody saw it coming – but it worked very well. Jackson had plenty of space to run into, he defended his full back well, and was really involved in his team’s attack.
So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to see the trick repeated today by Mauricio Pochettino, who made no changes to the team at all outside of swapping one central defender for another.
The coach was asked about this change in his pre-match interview tonight, and gave the following response:
“The performance [against Aston Villa] was really good. He played in that position against Luton [as well]. We try to help the players to find their best place. He needs space to run. He’s fast and helping the team. He’s doing fantastic.”
It he does well again today, we can expect this to be a permanent fixture going forward.
