Don't blame Nicolas Jackson! Chelsea's ridiculous squad-building has left Enzo Maresca as a reluctant babysitter - the young Blues need help from the men in suits

During his two seasons at Chelsea, Jackson has accumulated 18 yellow cards. That in itself is a shocking streak of ill-discipline, but given most of these were awarded for dissent or needless fouls without rhyme or reason, it's an indictment on the striker's inability to control himself.

Four yellows into the 2023-24 campaign - all picked up by September - then-manager Mauricio Pochettino said: "We were talking about it today because we were in a meeting with him and Enzo [Fernandez]. I told him for a striker to get four yellow cards only for protesting or talking to the referee, it's so easy, so cheap, getting yellow cards like that. Sometimes you need to get a yellow card in different actions, but not because of that. If it keeps happening and he gets suspended, he is going to put the team in a very difficult situation. He needs to be clever and not to protest to the referees in this way, but he understood. Jackson is 21 also and he's young. He needs to learn, needs to improve, needs to settle himself."

Yet Jackson was booked in his very next game to earn a suspension only six matches into the campaign. Here we are nearly two years later and he is scarcely any wiser, besides improving on a rate of seeing yellow five games in every six.

After overcoming a pretty poor first impression, Jackson eventually won over the match-going faithful last year for his improved form in front of goal and evident desire to win at all costs. The relationship took a step back last summer, however, when he got into it with club legend John Obi Mikel - one of a select few alumni to have a banner in his honour at Stamford Bridge - on social media.

It stemmed from Mikel's public desire for Chelsea to add a more proven scorer to their ranks. "You need a striker who knows how to hit a ball in the back of the net and that's what we don't have," the Nigerian said. "I know I talk so much about [Jackson] and sometimes I sound like I disrespect him. I don't disrespect him. I think at Chelsea Football Club we need a top striker who can get us a goal."

In rebuttal, Jackson took to Instagram and wrote: "Shut your mouth, don't talk sh*t, we are killing ourself for Africa." Since then, Mikel promised to lay off the Senegal international if he backed up his words with action, but midway through a run of 12 Premier League games without a goal this season, the ex-midfielder reignited the feud.

"We've talked about getting another top, top striker who can win us these kind of games, difficult games where if Nicolas Jackson is not firing on all cylinders you can give him a rest and then get someone else to come into the team and try to win us games and score goals," Mikel said in January. "We are not clinical enough, he is not scoring enough goals. He puts himself in the right positions, but then he’s not finishing, he's not scoring enough.

"He's not a striker who’s going to get us to the top four or win us the Premier League title. He's not that striker. I don't think he can get us over the line in terms of winning trophies. For me, he's a player who can link up play, he's good on the ball but he's not scoring enough goals. If we had Victor Osimhen or the guy from Sporting, Viktor Gyokeres, trust me, we'd still be competing for the Premier League. Nicolas is not scoring enough, the finishing, he needs to find a way. For me it’s a bit of a worry because we’re not scoring enough."

Mikel going back for seconds is not necessarily Jackson's fault, but it shouldn't have been a point of contention to begin with, both from a scoring perspective and acknowledging criticism from a fan-favourite so aggressively.

This is the string that when you pull at it, the whole Chelsea project unravels. The club have made no secret of their desire to almost completely rebrand as a premier destination for the world's top talent. In essence, they want to be a bigger version of Brighton, yet keep away from the spotlight of scrutiny and play the long game for return on investment.

Without any tangible leadership to guide them though, the Blues' top talents are being failed. Young footballers can't just be thrown together and asked to figure life out for themselves. It didn't help that the top brass decided to do away with Pochettino, someone with a proven track record of helping youthful squads mature and blossom, with an inexperienced head coach in Enzo Maresca.

Jackson, who had nine Premier League goals by Christmas but will end the campaign with only 10, has seen his growth stunted because the club have not put enough measures in place to keep him on the straight and narrow. The same can be said of all of their stars, with Cole Palmer even struggling without an older head to lean on. A free signing from Fulham, Tosin Adarabioyo has been cast as one of the leaders in the dressing room. No disrespect to a decent-level centre-back, but this is Chelsea Football Club we're talking about here.

The past few transfer windows, there have been so many noises out of west London about the hierarchy's happiness in the direction they are heading in, that this is a long-term vision which will take some time to fully see and realise. There are so many different distractions at Chelsea that it's easy to get swept up in any of them even before you reach what's happening with the men's team. It should be no surprise this culture of chaos has extended to the pitch given how much neglect has gone into the assembly of the squad, one of promise but without the tools to improve.

There are plenty of Chelsea supporters who are already running out of patience with Maresca. Midway through the season, the Blues looked like title contenders, but a mandate to forcefully play that notion down must have played a part in their waning form through the second half of the campaign.

Similarities have also been spotted between this year and Maresca's 2023-24 season with Leicester City. Boasting by far the strongest squad in the Championship, the Foxes steamrolled their way into first place for the first two-thirds of the campaign, but when they were effectively figured out by the rest of the division, they nearly squandered their shot at automatic promotion. In the end, quality on the pitch was decisive and they still finished in first place in spite of this wobble.

Such eerie parallels shouldn't be unexpected given how relatively young himself Maresca is in this industry. The lack of any sort of stability at Chelsea has only made his job harder, to boot. He has depended on a small core of players including Jackson, Palmer, Fernandez and Moises Caicedo, but everyone else has been interchangeable to his and the team's detriment.

When it emerged recently that Chelsea were thinking of making an offer to Virgil van Dijk before he signed a contract extension at Liverpool, it was clear the club saw this as an opportunity to fast-track an acquisition of experience, perhaps a belated replacement for the veteran Thiago Silva after losing his presence in 2024. This attempt failed, but that shouldn't stop them from continuing to look at this sort of profile.

The kids can't do it all alone, and nor can Maresca at this stage of his own career - there are so many decision-makers at Chelsea and yet the head coach is the only one being held accountable for the club's actions.

Chelsea have found it difficult to find an internal alternative to Jackson ever since he arrived from Villarreal, which has proven problematic in a couple of ways. His place in the line up is always assured as long as he is available, while whoever is in the dugout has been unable to shuffle the pack accordingly if that plan is failing.

The only other recognised centre-forward in the senior setup right now is 19-year-old Marc Guiu, who has only just returned to training after spending the last three months sidelined with a hamstring injury. Maybe more concerning is that 404 of his 578 minutes spent in a Chelsea shirt have been in the Conference League, with only 70 coming across three Premier League games.

Meanwhile, Christopher Nkunku - widely expected to leave Stamford Bridge this summer - has fallen out of favour and spent the last couple of games missing from the matchday squad due to a knock picked up in training. Even if he is available for the home stretch, Chelsea are toothless with his profile leading the line, bringing neither sufficient pressure to trouble the backline or link-up play to assist others.

Another option could be shifting Pedro Neto back into a central role having shown an appetite to play there earlier in the season. Back in February, Neto said: "I enjoy the role I'm playing through the middle, it's good because I don't have to run back as much! Wherever the manager needs me, I'm happy to do my best for the team. Playing further forward and centrally means I have more energy for running forward and trying to get behind the defence with my pace. It's good for me because it's almost like I have a free role. I can receive the ball into feet, or I can go in behind, so it gives us options."

The good news for Jackson, Maresca and everyone associated at Chelsea is this season isn't over, far from it. Friday night's visit of Manchester United, who have both eyes on their Europa League final against Tottenham next week, is the perfect tonic to cure their current ailments. The Blues' subsequent trip to Nottingham Forest on the final day of the Premier League campaign looks a tad trickier, but Nuno Espirito Santo's men have wobbled under the pressure of late and aren't the same force they were earlier in the season. Maresca will be afforded far more leeway and good will if his side end up in the top five.

Jackson will miss both of those games through suspension, and he'll have everything crossed that his dismissal won't come back to haunt him or the team for the remainder of 2024-25, even if it's thrown his future into doubt. Should Chelsea have a Champions League return teed up heading into the Conference League final against Real Betis on May 28, Jackson will have the perfect opportunity to put this debacle behind him and help earn the club the last European trophy they've never won before.

Regardless, this whole episode should serve as a warning to Chelsea. It's not that you can't win anything with kids, more that they need proper guidance and support if they are to flourish and lead you to the promised land.

Jackson won't want to hear this, but Mikel was right when he claimed he can't carry the scoring load all alone. His lengthy goal drought to completely lose his footing in the Golden Boot race is best testament to that. The Blues still do need an Osimhen or similarly experienced striker to shoulder the burden up top, though the same can be said of nearly every position in Maresca's XI.

Chelsea could be playing Champions League football next season, but it'll mean little if they don't make progress as a club in this regime as well. These are lessons to be learnt, not merely observed. They're still miles way from being serious Premier League contenders, they need to make sure that unit of measurement doesn't turn into 'lightyears'.