Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino showered Nicolas Jackson with big praise after his display in Monday’s win against Newcastle United.
Blues striker Nicolas Jackson, 22, scored his 12th goal of the season in yesterday’s victory at home to Newcastle.
Mauricio Pochettino’s side recorded a 3-2 success this week in the Premier League, which does keep their name in the conversation for the European spots.
For Jackson, he continued his good form by scoring the opener versus Newcastle with a clever flicked finish into the net.
The centre-forward’s been under the spotlight for criticism at times during his debut season at Stamford Bridge, but it’s turning out to be a fairly strong first year in English football.
Chelsea’s head coach certainly feels like Jackson is improving every week. In particular, he mention the Senegal striker has a “massive work-rate”.
When asked in his post-match interview if Jackson is developing and improving, Pochettino said last night via Football.London: “Yes, of course. Of course, we need to understand the player when they are young and arrive from out of England, they need to know first the Premier League. They also need to know their teammates to perform. But he is performing really well.
“The effort is always there, how he presses, the work-rate is massive. Of course, he has the quality. With more games, with experience, he is going to be more calm in front of the goal and he is going to be more clinical. We think he has the capacity but we need to keep believing that he can be the player, the striker, the offensive player that can score for Chelsea too many goals, a lot of goals.”
Nicolas Jackson against Newcastle
We agree the signs are there that Jackson’s game is moving in the right direction.
On top of his ninth league goal of the season last night, Jackson’s all-round involvement caught the eye against Newcastle.
The attacker’s quick, strong, technically gifted and full of running. It means he’s heavily involved when he’s playing, albeit the youngster still needs to iron out his mistakes before he becomes a top-class player.
We think he can reflect on a good year at Chelsea if he breaks the 15-goal mark, which he looks well on track to do now.
Receive a digest of our best Chelsea content each week direct to your mailbox
