Mauricio Pochettino confirms he has told 22-year-old Chelsea player to ‘be clever’ on the pitch

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Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino has confirmed has held a meeting with Nicolas Jackson about being smarter and calmer on the pitch.

He claimed in his pre-match press conference that he has been disappointed with the amount of yellow cards the player has received since joining the club.

Jackson has certainly struggled with discipline since playing for the Blues. In five starts, he now has four yellow cards to his name.

This will no doubt be a concern to Pochettino, who knows he is one more card away from losing his only fit striker for a game.

He did at least admit that Armando Broja may be involved in some capacity for Sunday’s game against Aston Villa.

However, he has admitted that he had to speak to Jackson personally this week in an attempt to calm him down.

Pochettino on what he’s told Jackson

He said: “Today we were talking about that as we had a meeting with him and also Enzo. A striker, four yellow cards only for talking with the referee. Not because of that, it is so cheap and it is going to bring a difficult situation to the team. He understood.

“Jackson is young, he is going to be a fantastic player. He needs to be calm and relaxed.

“We are talking about young players, you can blame me or blame us but they need time. There’s no doubt we have amazing talent but they need time.

“He needs to be clever and not protest to the referees. Maybe it’s because it’s his normal behaviour on the pitch, this season change the rules, he came from Spain and it’s different and the change is more sensitive about this.

“It is about adapting. I hope on Sunday we are not talking about him being clever and first action he is getting a yellow card.”