15. Nicolas Jackson

[Johnnyeye 7,414]

bottler

[Vesper 27,324]

Nicolas Jackson and Didier Drogba: Why comparisons between strikers are unfair

https://theathletic.com/5338948/2024/03/15/Chelsea-drogba-jackson-comparison/

In the wake of his clever flick to open the scoring against Newcastle United at Stamford Bridge on Monday, the tone of the ever-shifting conversation around Nicolas Jackson is starting to sound more positive again — but like so much modern discourse, it remains a dialogue that veers far too readily towards the extremes.

Five months were all it took for Jackson to go from fielding questions about emulating Didier Drogba on Chelsea’s pre-season tour of the United States to having his substitution cheered by his own supporters after several badly missed chances in the 2-1 defeat against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux.

Now, one good game after seeing his stepover fail against Brentford eagerly seized upon as social media meme material, the growing goal return of his debut campaign in English football is being compared favourably with that of the Ivorian’s first season at Chelsea in 2004-05.

The fact that the key numbers are similar — Drogba scored 16 goals in 41 appearances across all competitions, while Jackson has 12 goals with up to 14 matches to add to his 31 appearances this season — is less relevant than the reality that the comparison is plainly unfair.

To reference how Drogba began at Chelsea is to invoke what he became, thereby signalling the intent to hold a raw 22-year-old to the standard set by an era-defining legend with an entire career in the history books.

“From the beginning, we have been talking about Jackson needing to score goals — which is OK — but you cannot compare Jackson now with Didier Drogba,” Chelsea head coach Mauricio Pochettino said last month. “Drogba was one of the best strikers in the world and it’s difficult to build another Drogba.”

Chelsea would probably be foolish to even try because Drogba, as a player, a person and a football story, is as hard to replicate as they come.

A striker who first broke double figures for goals in a season as a 24-year-old at Guingamp in 2002-03. A No 9 who significantly reinvented his game in his mid-twenties (Jose Mourinho compared him to Thierry Henry upon signing him in 2004, before turning him into the greatest target man of his generation). A talisman who became the ultimate big-game decider despite only actually producing one prolific scoring season by modern standards, netting 37 goals in 44 appearances as a 31-year-old under Carlo Ancelotti in Chelsea’s double-winning 2009-10 campaign.

GO DEEPER

Drogba and destiny: From Stamford Bridge boos to Chelsea’s greatest

To point out that, at Jackson’s age, Drogba was still toiling unremarkably with Le Mans in the second tier of French football is striking, but does not feel like a pathway to a greater truth. Every football career is distinct and this particular one is playing out more than 20 years later, in a different era of the sport in which the striker role has itself evolved considerably.

Jackson is very early on in his own journey and Chelsea — as Pochettino stresses with increasing regularity — is a changed club undertaking a painful rebuild around youth. A more suitable short-term yardstick for his progress and potential might be the 15 Premier League goals that Tammy Abraham scored in 34 appearances as a 21-year-old in 2019-20.

The search for a worthy Drogba successor has consumed many inside and outside Chelsea ever since he first left in 2012. Only Diego Costa truly came close to walking the walk, and only in two of his three seasons at Stamford Bridge.

Yet it increasingly feels as if, in addition to resulting in a huge amount of wasted money on Alvaro Morata (£58million) and Romelu Lukaku (£97.5m; his second spell at the club) in particular, it has been a long-winded attempt to answer the wrong question.

In the last five full Premier League seasons, the eventual champions have scored an average of 91.2 goals — a bar that Chelsea, with or without Drogba, have only cleared once this century.

It is very rare for an individual player, even an extraordinary one, to raise the production of an entire attack; Manchester City actually scored five fewer goals with a rampant Erling Haaland last season than they managed without a single prolific goalscorer in 2021-22.

One of Pochettino’s key tasks is to build an attacking ecosystem that can match this high standard and, despite his flaws, Jackson is already showing enough to imagine a scenario in which he becomes a significant part of a prolific Chelsea attack in the future.

This season, only Dominic Calvert-Lewin has more significantly underperformed relative to his non-penalty expected goals (xG) than the Senegal international, but generating xG is a much better long-term indicator of an effective striker and, according to FBref, his 12.6 non-penalty xG ranks fifth in the Premier League.

“The effort is there, you see that with how he presses, and he has the quality,” Pochettino said of Jackson after the Newcastle win on Monday.

“With more games and more experience, he is going to be more calm and more clinical in front of the goal. He can score a lot of goals for Chelsea.

“We need to keep believing.”

Measured against any reasonable expectations, and certainly against his price tag, Jackson is doing fine.

To maintain that progress beyond what could be a summer of significant attacking reinforcement at Stamford Bridge, he might be wise to study how Drogba redoubled his efforts and raised his game every time Chelsea bought a new striker to compete with or replace him.

In almost every other respect, the spectre of the Ivorian is unhelpful, bar one: to serve as a powerful reminder to Jackson himself, and to anyone inclined to boo or mock him, that even the most legendary reputations are forged slowly through adversity, that the present is no prisoner of the past, and that nothing about the future is set in stone.

[Blue Armour 4,165]

2 hours ago, Vesper said:

Nicolas Jackson and Didier Drogba: Why comparisons between strikers are unfair

https://theathletic.com/5338948/2024/03/15/Chelsea-drogba-jackson-comparison/

In the wake of his clever flick to open the scoring against Newcastle United at Stamford Bridge on Monday, the tone of the ever-shifting conversation around Nicolas Jackson is starting to sound more positive again — but like so much modern discourse, it remains a dialogue that veers far too readily towards the extremes.

Five months were all it took for Jackson to go from fielding questions about emulating Didier Drogba on Chelsea’s pre-season tour of the United States to having his substitution cheered by his own supporters after several badly missed chances in the 2-1 defeat against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux.

Now, one good game after seeing his stepover fail against Brentford eagerly seized upon as social media meme material, the growing goal return of his debut campaign in English football is being compared favourably with that of the Ivorian’s first season at Chelsea in 2004-05.

The fact that the key numbers are similar — Drogba scored 16 goals in 41 appearances across all competitions, while Jackson has 12 goals with up to 14 matches to add to his 31 appearances this season — is less relevant than the reality that the comparison is plainly unfair.

To reference how Drogba began at Chelsea is to invoke what he became, thereby signalling the intent to hold a raw 22-year-old to the standard set by an era-defining legend with an entire career in the history books.

“From the beginning, we have been talking about Jackson needing to score goals — which is OK — but you cannot compare Jackson now with Didier Drogba,” Chelsea head coach Mauricio Pochettino said last month. “Drogba was one of the best strikers in the world and it’s difficult to build another Drogba.”

Chelsea would probably be foolish to even try because Drogba, as a player, a person and a football story, is as hard to replicate as they come.

A striker who first broke double figures for goals in a season as a 24-year-old at Guingamp in 2002-03. A No 9 who significantly reinvented his game in his mid-twenties (Jose Mourinho compared him to Thierry Henry upon signing him in 2004, before turning him into the greatest target man of his generation). A talisman who became the ultimate big-game decider despite only actually producing one prolific scoring season by modern standards, netting 37 goals in 44 appearances as a 31-year-old under Carlo Ancelotti in Chelsea’s double-winning 2009-10 campaign.

GO DEEPER

Drogba and destiny: From Stamford Bridge boos to Chelsea’s greatest

To point out that, at Jackson’s age, Drogba was still toiling unremarkably with Le Mans in the second tier of French football is striking, but does not feel like a pathway to a greater truth. Every football career is distinct and this particular one is playing out more than 20 years later, in a different era of the sport in which the striker role has itself evolved considerably.

Jackson is very early on in his own journey and Chelsea — as Pochettino stresses with increasing regularity — is a changed club undertaking a painful rebuild around youth. A more suitable short-term yardstick for his progress and potential might be the 15 Premier League goals that Tammy Abraham scored in 34 appearances as a 21-year-old in 2019-20.

The search for a worthy Drogba successor has consumed many inside and outside Chelsea ever since he first left in 2012. Only Diego Costa truly came close to walking the walk, and only in two of his three seasons at Stamford Bridge.

Yet it increasingly feels as if, in addition to resulting in a huge amount of wasted money on Alvaro Morata (£58million) and Romelu Lukaku (£97.5m; his second spell at the club) in particular, it has been a long-winded attempt to answer the wrong question.

In the last five full Premier League seasons, the eventual champions have scored an average of 91.2 goals — a bar that Chelsea, with or without Drogba, have only cleared once this century.

It is very rare for an individual player, even an extraordinary one, to raise the production of an entire attack; Manchester City actually scored five fewer goals with a rampant Erling Haaland last season than they managed without a single prolific goalscorer in 2021-22.

One of Pochettino’s key tasks is to build an attacking ecosystem that can match this high standard and, despite his flaws, Jackson is already showing enough to imagine a scenario in which he becomes a significant part of a prolific Chelsea attack in the future.

This season, only Dominic Calvert-Lewin has more significantly underperformed relative to his non-penalty expected goals (xG) than the Senegal international, but generating xG is a much better long-term indicator of an effective striker and, according to FBref, his 12.6 non-penalty xG ranks fifth in the Premier League.

“The effort is there, you see that with how he presses, and he has the quality,” Pochettino said of Jackson after the Newcastle win on Monday.

“With more games and more experience, he is going to be more calm and more clinical in front of the goal. He can score a lot of goals for Chelsea.

“We need to keep believing.”

Measured against any reasonable expectations, and certainly against his price tag, Jackson is doing fine.

To maintain that progress beyond what could be a summer of significant attacking reinforcement at Stamford Bridge, he might be wise to study how Drogba redoubled his efforts and raised his game every time Chelsea bought a new striker to compete with or replace him.

In almost every other respect, the spectre of the Ivorian is unhelpful, bar one: to serve as a powerful reminder to Jackson himself, and to anyone inclined to boo or mock him, that even the most legendary reputations are forged slowly through adversity, that the present is no prisoner of the past, and that nothing about the future is set in stone.

 

Can never truly blame Jackson, or any of the other youngsters that have been signed up to make our starting 11.

I blame the clowns who decided to build a squad made up almost entirely of 20 year-olds and putting them all under massive pressure., from both the fans and the media.

 

 

[Mário César 814]

I think he is getting better and better but we need other option along him in the next season

[NikkiCFC 7,587]

 

Edited April 8 by NikkiCFC

[Reddish-Blue 2,224]

6 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

 

I said it when we signed this guy, he's a raw talent for the future but he's not experienced enough to be leading the line every other week.  
We really went from Diego Costa/Giroud to youngsters up front.  

Would Jackson/Sterling/Madueke/Mudryk start for any of the top 6 in the PL?     And that's part of the reason why we're mid-table and not competitive. 

[Fulham Broadway 16,393]

7 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

 

Quite justified. Lost 8 duels, the most out of all the players on the pitch, and lost the ball 21 times in 89 minutes

[robsblubot 3,225]

1 hour ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Quite justified. Lost 8 duels, the most out of all the players on the pitch, and lost the ball 21 times in 89 minutes

To be fair to Jackson, it's quite hard to spot an open teammate when you run with your head down all the time.

[Special Juan 27,103]

He's just shit, that is the long and short of it. He won't be around next season if we go and get a proper number 9

 

[lucio 5,397]

21 hours ago, Reddish-Blue said:

I said it when we signed this guy, he's a raw talent for the future but he's not experienced enough to be leading the line every other week.  
We really went from Diego Costa/Giroud to youngsters up front.  

Would Jackson/Sterling/Madueke/Mudryk start for any of the top 6 in the PL?     And that's part of the reason why we're mid-table and not competitive. 

He’s not talented , he’s a cart horse 

[Reddish-Blue 2,224]

1 hour ago, Special Juan said:

if we go and get a proper number 9

Aren't we next on the FFP hit list (there were so many articles in the past few months saying that we can't buy anyone without selling assets)

I don't see us getting a proper #9, may end up with Lukaku up front 

[Fernando 6,376]

1 hour ago, Reddish-Blue said:

Aren't we next on the FFP hit list (there were so many articles in the past few months saying that we can't buy anyone without selling assets)

I don't see us getting a proper #9, may end up with Lukaku up front 

I prefer we keep Jackson then use lukaku. 

[Johnnyeye 7,414]

lump of turd

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,742]

On 09/04/2024 at 07:09, Fernando said:

I prefer we keep Jackson then use lukaku. 

After watching that finishing today still think so?

[Johnnyeye 7,414]

instead of focusing on his finishing he rather throw tantrums because of a pen, moron. same as Madueke

Edited April 20 by Johnnyeye

[lucio 5,397]

Worthless donkey , needs selling for peanuts , put him up for sale at £5m

[OneMoSalah 8,615]

How can somebody who missed the chances he did today even try and take a penalty off our top scorer last match? What a joke of a footballer. 

[LAM09 6,551]

8 minutes ago, OneMoSalah said:

How can somebody who missed the chances he did today even try and take a penalty off our top scorer last match? What a joke of a footballer. 

This is something that really gets to me. Several players in this squad are arrogant but lack the ability to back it up.