Mauricio Pochettino’s bold Nicolas Jackson prediction is starting to come true

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Understandably, there were a lot of doubts about Nicolas Jackson when he joined Chelsea last summer.

Nicolas Jackson arrived at Chelsea from Villarreal as a 22-year-old with no Premier League experience.

He was a fairly inexperienced striker in general, playing less than 50 games for the Yellow Submarine before his move to Stamford Bridge.

Nevertheless, Mauricio Pochettino seemed to really believe in him, while his successor Enzo Maresca is also a big fan. Maresca recently lauded Jackson for his effort against Leicester City, a game in which he managed to score in.

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What did Mauricio Pochettino say about Nicolas Jackson during his time at Chelsea?

At the start of the 2023/24 season, Pochettino claimed that Jackson would score a lot of goals and would prove to be a “fantastic” addition to the Chelsea squad.

In an interview with The Athletic, the 52-year-old said: “He’s still young but he has the character and capacity to improve quickly. He’s going to score lots of goals.

“His work ethic on the pitch, how he presses, his quality when he drives the ball and his technique when he’s running at intensity is really unbelievable. He’s going to be fantastic for us.”

Fast forward to now, and Jackson is showing just that, with the Senegal international really improving this season.

Nicolas Jackson proving Mauricio Pochettino right

Fourteen goals in 35 Premier League appearances is not the worst record, but Jackson was not the most reliable centre-forward last term.

He missed a lot of chances, resulting in Cole Palmer often having to be Chelsea’s match-winner. However, in the current campaign, Jackson has been a different animal.

His finishing has been so much better — you only have to look at how well the former Villarreal man took his goal against Leicester to see that — and he is already halfway away from matching his Premier League goal tally from last season.

It was perhaps bold for Pochettino to claim that an unproven striker would score goals for Chelsea and become an excellent player for the club. But after quite an inconsistent 2023/24 campaign, Jackson is proving his former manager right this term.

Newcastle United’s Alexander Isak is on Chelsea’s radar, but with how Jackson has been playing of late, the Blues do not need him.