The rise of Nicolas Jackson: From Chelsea laughing stock to London's best striker

Chelsea weren't actually the first English club to try and sign Jackson. Six months before his slated arrival at Stamford Bridge, Bournemouth reached a €23 million agreement with Villarreal and the deal was all set to go through - it even had Fabrizio Romano's 'here we go' seal of approval.

Alas, Jackson failed his medical and was sent back to Spain for the rest of the 2022-23 campaign. The Cherries, at that point not certain of Premier League safety, weren't sure exactly when he would be able to return from a hamstring strain and moved for Bristol City's Antoine Semenyo instead (which, as far as contingency plans go, wasn't actually the worst thing in the world).

That summer, with Jackson fit again and having ripped off a run of nine goals in the final eight La Liga games of the season, Chelsea took the plunge and agreed a fee in excess of his €35m release clause. In hindsight, perhaps the west Londoners should have received a bit more credit for not caving to media pressure and going all-in on another hugely expensive striker, given their long and strange run of high-profile No.9s flopping for them. That same pressure wouldn't be placed on Jackson's shoulders.

Jackson's first few months at Chelsea didn't go according to plan, however. He scored only two goals in his first nine Premier League games, with both coming against teams - Luton Town and Burnley - who would be relegated come the end of the season.

Frustration over the misfiring striker reached a boiling point during a 2-0 defeat at home to Brentford in October 2023, with a fan sat in the lower tier of Stamford Bridge, right next to the dugout, hurling abuse at Jackson. Head coach Mauricio Pochettino quickly sought to diffuse the situation and retorted: "Support the players!"

In his post-match press conference, Pochettino said: "It was a moment we all feel frustrated because after 40 minutes playing well and creating chances in that moment the energy of the stadium was a bit down. Because it was really calm [we could hear that] one fan said: 'Oh, wake up' and abuse a little bit. Nicolas was losing a bit of a focus and I was saying: 'Hey, come on, be focused here'.

"I repeat again, we need support and to stay behind the team and that’s it. I was very respectful and the fan was respectful... and the player took it in a bad way. It’s normal because the player wanted to score and do a good thing. Nothing more."

After that loss to the Bees, Chelsea found themselves 12th in the Premier League table. A trip to table-topping, undefeated Tottenham was up next.

That trip across London to Spurs proved to be one of the strangest games in Premier League history. So much of the build-up was focused on Pochettino's emotional return to the club he had rebuilt in the modern day, how both sides of the divorce were trying to move on with their lives, and how Tottenham could actually announce themselves as title contenders under Ange Postecoglou while edging the Argentine closer to an early firing.

What followed was astonishing. Tottenham went a goal up early on through a deflected Dejan Kulusevski strike, and the slightest of offsides saw a second from Son Heung-min ruled out, with Chelsea on the verge of total collapse. Then it all changed.

A VAR check saw the visitors awarded a penalty and Cristian Romero sent off. Cole Palmer scored from 12 yards before Destiny Udogie also received his marching orders. Postecoglou's rebuttal was to order his makeshift defence to play an offside trap on the halfway line and squeeze the game as much as physically possible.

Predictably, this led to several Chelsea breaks, some of which were curtailed by late offside flags, but plenty of which were legitimate. Jackson missed again and again and again, thwarted on many occasions by goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario. Eventually, Spurs' resistance was broken and Chelsea ran out 4-1 winners, with Jackson grabbing three goals of his own. Yet it was regarded by some as an embarrassing hat-trick given he could have scored nearly double his final total.

Obviously, the main concern you would have about a striker is when they aren't scoring enough goals. Jackson, though, had another crease to his game that needed ironing out and is still semi-prevalent to this day.

Across his first six Premier League appearances, he accumulated the five bookings needed to incur a one-game suspension. All of these cautions were for dissent.

Pochettino had a stern warning for Jackson and his youthful team-mates: "We need to grow up like a team. A player like Nico is so young and is feeling the Premier League and is learning. He made the mistake. We feel disappointed because we are paying for too many situations like this."

Jackson ended the season with 10 bookings in total, managing to at least slow the rate at which he picked up his yellow cards. However, ill-discipline is still at the top of his list of weaknesses, having already picked up four so far this season.

Chelsea hired Pochettino because he was a proven wonderkid whisperer. They had assembled a squad of future stars and needed the right manager to make them a team.

His Tottenham affiliations didn't help in trying to win over the fans, and an extremely slow start saw quick calls for the sack, but Pochettino's one-year stint at Stamford Bridge will be remembered fondly if they are successful over the next few seasons. The Argentine managed to trim the roster down and picked out the core players whom the club needed to build around, with Jackson and Palmer his deadly duo in the final third.

"I spoke to Sadio Mane about him and he spoke very highly of him, he said amazing things about him," Jackson said about Pochettino. "Sadio told me the manager is going to help me a lot to improve and do well if I listen to what he has to tell me, so that is exactly what I'm going to do."

And on his part, Pochettino always had faith in Jackson to become a 'prolific striker': "Yes, of course. but he needs time. He needs to adapt to the Premier League. He is doing a fantastic job but afterwards, to score is not easy. Sometimes he is a little bit rushed in his decisions, but this is only to say he needs to settle himself, be more calm and more relaxed and for sure he is going to score goals.

"It is really important for him [to get off the mark] because he is a young player, coming in from a different league. The Premier League is always difficult [to adapt to]. We asked him to run, to press in the phase when we don't have the ball. Then the quality with his feet, to run with the ball and to link with his team-mates. He can become one of the greatest strikers in the Premier League with time."

Enzo Maresca has picked up the baton from Pochettino flawlessly. Chelsea have matured plenty through the opening months of 2024-25, and Jackson has been a shining example of that evolution.

Previously shunned for his errant finishing, Jackson boasted the best conversion rate (25.8 percent) among all Premier League players who have taken more than 25 shots from game-weeks one to 13. Eight goals and three assists from 13 matches is a fine return through the first week of December.

The club failed in a summer pursuit of Victor Osimhen, and though the Nigerian may well have been a hit, Maresca expressed his happiness with Jackson being his go-to striker.

"I had faith, and the club also, even before [in Jackson]. We trust Nicolas. When the transfer window was open, I said he was doing fantastic with us," the Italian said after the summer window closed. "I'm very happy. Nicolas is doing a fantastic job with us."

On Sunday, Chelsea head back to Tottenham in almost completely opposite positions to last season. The Blues are now in the title picture and their young guns are thriving, while Postecoglou is under the cosh for failing to make his talented team consistent enough to challenge.

Jackson too is back with his reputation completely uplifted and restored. No longer is he the liability or a culprit for holding the Blues back, rather a talisman and perfect partner for Palmer. He has a new rival to be London's top striker in Spurs' Dominic Solanke, who was tipped for greatness at Stamford Bridge after smashing his way through their Cobham academy set-up, but right now Jackson rules the roost.

There will be goals at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. It might not be three for Jackson this year, but he'll be sure of scoring in N17 again.