Chelsea can still improve frustrating player many fans want to sell insists former Blue | OneFootball

Nicolas Jackson was already a frustrating player – mixing incredible moments with dreadful misses. But his two red cards in 3 games recently pushed a lot of Blues fans over the edge, convincing them this wasn’t a project worth persevering with.

Former Chelsea striker on Jackson’s strong points

Nicolas Jackson celebrates his goal in the Conference League final.(Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

But one person who does like Jackson (and knows a thing or two about strikers) is Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. On Jon Obi Mikel’s podcast recently, the former Chelsea striker listed what he liked about the Senegal star, despite his flaws:

“I really like Jackson. Because a) he brings a lot of energy to the team. People don’t see that. You know, the pressing from the front, the work rate all that kind of stuff is very important for a successful team. Then, b) he gets lots of chance. I’d rather have a striker that gets lots of chances than a striker who doesn’t get chances,” Hasselbaink explained.

“So first of all he’s getting chances, now we can work on him finishing, to make him calmer and to understand. Let’s not forget. Before Villarreal, he was playing nowhere… and he’s still very young. So you can still improve him.”

You can see JFH speaking in the clip embedded here:

Jackson worth working with despite frustrations

All of that makes a lot of sense, and is exactly why we’ve backed Jackson as a good player despite the many frustrations in his game and his personality. It would be crazy to give up on him now – even if he will never develop the elite finishing game we need from our first choice number 9, his exceptional skills in other areas can more than make up for it.

He has a great chance to convince us again tonight.