Overthinking Nicolas Jackson

A (very) deep dive into one of Fantrax's most interesting and divisive early-season names: Chelsea forward Nicolas Jackson.

Chelsea’s recent woes at striker have not been for want of trying, having signed (or brought through) a raft of different options over the last few seasons

If there’s one thing Chelsea have consistently provided us for Fantrax since Diego Costa left these shores, it’s strikers that get drafted well above their ability to produce each Summer. We’ve seen Alvaro Morata, Timo Werner, Kai Havertz and Romelu Lukaku all get varying degrees of buzz, only to disappoint. We did see Tammy Abraham come out of nowhere to put up an excellent first season (slowed by injury later in the season), only to fade away almost entirely in the second and third.

This Summer, there were two attacking additions signed with the intention of replacing Havertz and Mount in the attacking positions: Christopher Nkunku and Nicolas Jackson. We’re yet to see a minute of Nkunku in the Premier League after his preseason injury (he is assumed to be due back into team training around December / January) and with Armando Broja also recovering from his own injury, it’s been Jackson’s role by default.

Given the start, we’ve seen some questions about whether he should be held by his Fantrax managers, or even if his spot in the Chelsea side is secure. So we’re going to take a long look at Jackson in this article (and we do mean long - you may have to actually open this one in the app / on the website to read the full thing if your email provider objects). We’ve gone back and watched every game, we’ve looked at the stats and we’re ready to share what we’ve seen. We’re interested in the following:

• Who is he?

• How has he played so far?

• What should our level of optimism be for him turning around his start to the season