Nicolas Jackson scored Chelsea’s only goal yesterday, continuing a good start to the season.
On BBC Radio 5 Live, former West Ham midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker had a lot of thoughts about the striker’s development.
“I think he has tremendous potential. He has all the attributes of a striker as he is strong and quick,” Reo-Coker explained.
“If he had the mindset of wanting to be a game killer and score 30 plus goals a season then he could. But he has to work on his game. The biggest thing he is missing is composure. If he can learn how to have that in vital moments then he will score a lot of goals.”
Jackson make big improvements – but is not perfect yet
It’s not a bad assessment of Jackson, and it remains pretty true overall. But it’s also the kind of thing you could have said work for word this time last year, and it would have been far more relevant. Jackson has made real advances in that time, in all of the areas that Reo-Coker mentions.
Yesterday was actually a really good example. The goal that Chelsea got had two elements in it that the Senegal star has improved. Firstly, despite being initially ruled out for offside, the replays showed he had timed his run well and curved it to stay on. That was a major frustration from a year ago, and one he’s clearly working hard to improve on.
Secondly, in terms of “composure,” he did well too, making a clever finish to the near post as the keeper rushed out. Again, it was a chance we would have expected him to miss a year ago.
He did then smash a shot wildly past the frame when he could have squared it or shot across the keeper not long after, so he’s not perfect, but great progress has been made.
