How Nicolas Jackson proved Alan Shearer wrong and changed his Chelsea career

Rewind six months and Nicolas Jackson may have been reluctant to get too close to the Chelsea fans who berated him from the stands at Stamford Bridge.

But Jackson is changing his mind – just ask Alan Shearer – and his first instinct after scoring his 14th Premier League goal of the season was skip straight to traveling Chelsea fans at Nottingham ForestCity Land.

It was a symbolic moment of how Jackson has managed to make even his biggest critics doubt themselves as he prepares to face Brighton and Hove Albion with Chelsea on Wednesday night.

Jackson’s 14 League goals put him ahead of Rasmus Hojlund, Darwin Núñez and Kai Havertz this season, and just five behind Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins, who deservedly made several experts’ lists of the season.

In total, the 22-year-old scored 17 goals and assisted on six occasions. But, perhaps equally significantly in Chelsea’s injury-ravaged season, Jackson remained fit and available.

He made 42 appearances in his debut season as Chelsea’s only in-form striker and played almost 4,000 minutes without missing a single game through injury, despite undergoing wrist surgery and playing with a splint.

Jackson proved to be a fighter and forced a U-turn from Shearer, who did not hold back in his initial criticism of the former Villarreal player in Match of the Day, when he had scored just two goals in the League.

Shearer accused Jackson of showing a “total lack of movement” and failing to demonstrate the instincts of a striker following the home defeat to Brentford in which the Senegalese international was distracted by taunts from a Chelsea fan in the stands at Stamford Bridge.

But with 12 league goals and six months on, Shearer was much more positive in his analysis of Jackson after the victory over Forest, in which he scored the winning goal and celebrated with the Chelsea fans.

“He’s definitely raw but there’s a lot of potential there,” Shearer said on Match of the Day. “He’s good at running with the ball, his runs in behind are very clever. It’s that last thing he needs to catch up on and get behind. He’s 22 years old, has 29 starts, 14 goals… I think it’s a decent return.”

Mauricio Pochettino watched Shearer criticize Jackson after the defeat at Brentford. Asked if he watched Match of the Day last Saturday to get Shearer’s latest opinion on the striker, the Chelsea manager said: “No, but I heard it.

“It’s true that he (Jackson) deserved [some criticism] because he was missing big chances. What will you (the media) say? You need to describe it, don’t you? But for us, it’s a different judgment. It’s seeing the potential and the ability to improve. That’s where, even if you’re not scoring goals and receiving all the criticism, you have to show all the confidence and security and continue working in the same way.

“I think Nico has the potential to be a very, very good striker. A fantastic striker. It received incredible reviews from the start because it was compared to [Didier] Drogba from the start. But to judge and be so radical in your opinions, be careful because I think it’s about seeing what’s happening, what we see and Nico, I think through trust and very hard work, is changing opinions. I’m really happy that now people are starting to see Nico the way we did.”

‘We need to create things that fans really love’

On Jackson’s celebration at the City Ground and his improved relationship with Chelsea fans, Pochettino added: “I’m very happy about it. I like it when fans have fun with the players. For me, it is more important than [fans’] relationship with the coach.

“We need to create things that [make] the fans really love the players because they are the main actors. Then it is up to us to have the capacity to manage the situation. Sometimes we can be stronger, sometimes we need to be more flexible, sometimes we need to show emotions. Sometimes we don’t need to show emotions. This is getting the right balance in human management.

“It’s easy when fans or people get upset with some players because they missed a penalty or missed a chance, to say the fans are right and kill the player. But when we really believe in the player, sometimes the fans need to trust us.

“When the player deserves us to support him, as in the case of Nico, we bet and give everything to stay calm and work hard because we knew the ability and quality he has and it was just time to show it. ”

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