The 3 huge stats which show why nobody is talking bad about Chelsea starter anymore | OneFootball

Nicolas Jackson is still a frustrating player for many fans – silly yellow cards, unnecessary offsides and some wild decisions in the box still mean we can’t call him the finished product just yet.

But his performance in front of goals keeps getting better, and in the space of a year he’s shown quite amazing improvement.

WhoScored just put up this stat which compares the xG per shot of every striker in the Premier League, effectively showing who is shooting from the best positions, as well as who is taking shots at the right time. Jackson is up in second place with 0.25 xG, behind only Ollie Watkins in the top flight.

It’s yet another statistical quirk showing the improvements that the Senegal star has made to his game.

To be fair, but by the end of last season it was already 0.23. He’s never been one to blast silly efforts from distance. But even that 2% increase shows progress. A glance at his FBRef page shows that his career totals in that category has gone from 0.13 to 0.19, before climbing to 0.23 then 0.25.

His goals per shot has jumped up this season too – from 0.18 to 0.24. His xG underperformance last season was a dreadful -4.2 (meaning an average player shooting from where he shot from would have have more than 4 extra goals last season). This season it’s just 0.2, a vast improvement.

Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson celebrate together. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Jackson has nothing left to prove after big step up

The biggest sign of Jackson’s success this season is that nobody is talking about him. There is no moaning about the failure to sign a striker in the summer, nor is there really a clamour to get Christopher Nkunku into the team. The focus is much more on the defence, midfield and goalkeeper as potential issues, while the striker just gets on with his work.