Chelsea star 'making it very hard for himself' says former defender

Cameron Smith

• 29 Dec 2023 11:48 GMT
• 3 min read

Former Chelsea defender Mario Melchiot believes that Nicolas Jackson is “making it very hard for himself” following a poor run of form in front of goal.

The Senegal striker has seven Premier League goals so far this season, but he has underperformed his Expected Goals (xG) tally by the second-largest amount of any player in the English top flight in 2023-24.

Jackson should’ve scored 3.5 more goals than he has this campaign, as per his xG, and only Everton’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin has a worse tally than the Chelsea man (3.8).

Although Jackson is on track to become Chelsea’s most prolific Premier League goal-scorer since Tammy Abraham’s debut campaign, the 22-year-old has faced major criticism this year, following some glaring misses.

Against Crystal Palace, the former Villarreal star had one huge opportunity after being played through by Conor Gallagher, but he misjudged his chip attempt and saw the ball sail wide of Dean Henderson’s post.

Despite an overall performance that will have pleased Mauricio Pochettino, Melchiot still believes that Jackson is a problem for Chelsea.

Nicolas Jackson’s Chelsea form is a concern

Following the narrow 2-1 win over Roy Hodgson’s Palace, Melchiot spoke to ESPN’s YouTube channel about Chelsea’s main forward.

“Jackson is making it really tough,” he said. “I watched him and he is making it very, very hard for himself.

“The competition is there in [Christopher] Nkunku. I know Poch said it too ‘he needs time’. I know time is the really difficult part. But Nkunku. I like what he is doing and I hope he keeps progressing.

“But Jackson, I don’t know. I was never a striker. He has the speed and the power. But he doesn’t have the calmness in his head that I feel a proper striker needs,” Melchiot continued. “He’s not an old guy. He still has time. The only thing he needs to work on is the calmness [in front of goal].

“People are going to start thinking ‘shall I give it to him or should I finish it myself?’ I don’t want him to be in that position because strikers never want to be in that position."