Former Chelsea star William Gallas believes Enzo Maresca knows what he’s doing when it comes to Nicolas Jackson and Christopher Nkunku and laid down a challenge for the Senegal international.
The pair have been competing this season to be Chelsea’s first choice striker, with Jackson currently holding the position down having made an impressive start to the season.
Despite only starting one of Chelsea’s seven Premier League games, Nkunku is the club’s top scorer with seven goals in all competitions.
Gallas on Jackson and Nkunku
A lot was made of Chelsea’s failure to sign a striker this summer, but in Jackson and Nkunku the Blues have two players at the top end of the pitch who are scoring goals.
Jackson has four goals and three assists in seven games this season, and recently scored his first goal for Senegal, whilst Nkunku has got himself back in the France squad and scored in their recent match with Israel.
Both players naturally want to start and it’s a great problem for Maresca to have with two players in really good form, although when Nkunku signed he wouldn’t have expected to be playing a bit part role in the Premier League.
However, Gallas believes Maresca knows what he’s doing with the pair and laid down a challenge to Jackson for the season ahead.
“Enzo Maresca knows what he is doing with Christopher Nkunku and Nicolas Jackson, he has them in competition with each other so they know they have to be at their very best to stay in the team,” he told Prime Casino as cited on X.com
“They both want to start and they’ve both been showing that they can score goals, if one of them stops scoring then the other one will play.
“I think Jackson should be targeting 20 goals this season after getting 14 last year, he needs to keep improving because he knows he is in competition with Nkunku.”
With the amount of chances Chelsea create 20 goals is a realistic target for Jackson and on only early evidence this season it looks like his finishing has improved.
