Erratic or excellent? The data shows Nicolas Jackson’s value to Chelsea

Football is a game of opinions, but Tim Sherwood could maybe do with analysing the data before stating his. Speaking as a pundit on an international broadcast following Chelsea’s win over Brentford on Sunday, Sherwood declared that “at times [Nicolas Jackson] looks like someone playing in Soccer Aid who’s not a footballer.”

It’s fair to say that Jackson has divided opinion more than most players since arriving in the Premier League in the summer of 2023. The Senegal striker displayed raw talent in his 18 months in the first team at Spanish top-flight club Villarreal.

Chelsea took a £32m punt on him, and he made a mixed start to life in England. But now, 50 Premier League appearances later, the 23-year-old has provided enough evidence that he can score goals at the highest level.

Jackson is among the Premier League’s top goalscorers since he moved, with his latest strike against Brentford taking him to 23 goals in his 50 appearances in the competition. Just seven players have more goals in that time, but taking away penalties, only Ollie Watkins (25) and Erling Haaland (40) have scored more.

The context around Sherwood’s opinion on Jackson surrounds his supposedly erratic finishing, but the data actually shows a player who both gets in good positions to score and converts a good proportion of his chances. Eighteen players have scored 14 or more goals from non-penalty shots in the Premier League since Jackson’s arrival , and only one of those – Haaland (0.80) – has averaged more non-penalty expected goals per 90 than him (0.61). The Chelsea forward has converted 19.0% of his non-penalty shots too – that’s more than 13 of those 18 players.

Nicolas Jackson has scored nine goals this season after netting 14 in his debut campaign. Illustration: Opta

Jackson is on a particularly hot streak right now, scoring five goals in his last eight appearances from an xG total of 3.3. His previous five goals came across 10 games from shots totalling 6.7 xG, but this is where xG can sometimes be misleading when trying to analyse a player’s finishing quality. Even the best players in the world go through hot and cold streaks in front of goal, but where Jackson excels is making sure that he’s at least getting himself in strong positions to score.

This has rarely been an issue across Jackson’s career at Chelsea, but his relative lack of top-flight experience could have been a factor behind his underperformance of goals compared to xG last season (14 goals from 18.7 xG). Before moving to Chelsea, Jackson had only played 1,758 minutes of top-flight European football in his career, all at Villarreal.

In Sunday’s win over Brentford, Jackson frustrated supporters after failing to score with his first six shots in the match, before netting with his seventh, one of the toughest chances he had in the game. That goal turned out to be decisive in the 2-1 win and showed a flash of the quality that Jackson possesses in front of goal.

The former England goalkeeper Ben Foster, who conceded 570 goals in 390 Premier League appearances and knows a thing or two about strikers in the competition, said on his YouTube channel: “Jackson’s finish [against Brentford] was a thing of beauty. As a goalie, when he’s running through there, I’m betting most of my money he’s putting it down to my right. It’s the easier finish.

“You can come across it and get more pace. For him to be that calm and composed and not give anything away with his body language and slot it into that far corner, it’s a really difficult finish,” Foster concluded. “The goalie didn’t even know what day it was. It was such a good finish.”

The appointment of Enzo Maresca as manager to replace Mauricio Pochettino has also helped Jackson. The Itlian has ensured that Jackson’s role in the side is much more focused on scoring than being involved in the buildup. The 23-year-old is averaging nearly six fewer touches per 90 this season under Maresca (31.0) than he did under Pochettino (36.7), but one more in the opposition box on average (6.4 per 90 vs 5.4). That means 20.7% of his touches have come in the opposition penalty area this season, up from 14.7% in 2023-24.

Under Mauricio Pochettino, Jackson was required to drop deep and be involved in the buildup … Illustration: Opta

So far this season, Jackson’s has played a part in the buildup to 14.5% of Chelsea’s open-play sequences leading to a shot (rather than being the chance creator or the shooter). Last season, that proportion was at 21.0% under Pochettino in the Premier League. This shows how Maresca has tried to push Jackson further forward in attack and asked less of him in Chelsea’s build-up play than Pochettino ever did.

This has the added benefit of giving creative players like Cole Palmer more space to work in. It should come as little surprise that Palmer is the creator-in-chief for Jackson in the Premier League since the pair became teammates, with 17 chances created for him and four assists by the England international since the start of 2023-24.

Palmer’s creative qualities have helped Jackson become one of the best goalscorers in Chelsea’s Premier League history at this stage of his career. Jackson’s total of 23 non-penalty goals in his first 50 Premier League appearances is only exceeded by Diego Costa (30) and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (27).

Jackson could be overtaken by Palmer in that list, but the former Manchester City youngster would need to score at least two goals against Everton on Sunday. He is on 21 non-penalty goals in 49 Premier League appearances for the Blues. Across the whole Premier League, only 19 players from any club have scored more than Jackson’s 23 non-penalty goals in their first 50 appearances (or in Tony Yeboah’s case, inside his total of 47 games).

 

Only Diego Costa and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink scored more than Jackson in their first 50 Premier League games for Chelsea. Illustration: Opta

Jackson is some way off Andrew Cole’s record of 41 non-penalty goals in his opening 50 Premier League games but has scored more than some celebrated players, including Jürgen Klinsmann (22), Eric Cantona (22), Didier Drogba (20) and Luis Suárez (20). His tally is also only one fewer than Ruud van Nistelrooy at Manchester United (24 in his first 50). These are all players who are remembered as great Premier League goalscorers.

There have only been four occasions of a Chelsea player scoring 20 or more non-penalty goals in a Premier League season, and the last was Diego Costa way back in 2016-17 (with 20). Jackson is now one goal off being halfway there before the midway point of this season.

Maresca might not like to admit it, but Chelsea are now in the Premier League title race in 2024-25. The difference between winning it and missing out could come down to how clinical they are in attack. Thankfully for them, if the opening four months of the season are to go by, Jackson is showing positive signs of being the goalscorer they need.