I think when watching this Chelsea squad rebuild that many of us have had the same concerns, and probably still do (I know I do).
We have all acknowledged that there is a lot of quality in our squad now, and I have mentioned many times over the last few weeks just how scary our attacking midfield area is now looking. It’s ridiculous the amount of quality we now have in those areas. Christopher Nkunku is not even getting a start right now for god’s sake. That’s madness.
But the one thing that has always concerned me is just having too many raw players and without any guarantee of them becoming ripe. But it’s also a fact that just because something is raw, it does not mean that it cannot soon become ripe, or cooked. And the same goes for raw players.
If this all pays off, Chelsea’s squad builders will be laughing. It was always a very risky strategy, but it could come off. It could also still fail miserably, I am absolutely not saying we are there yet by the way, far from it. But players like Nicolas Jackson are showing that raw players can pay off.
Jackson was being heavily criticised and even abused by some Chelsea fans when he first arrived. I have always voiced my concerns about Jackson and I’ll never hide that. I still have those concerns about him in front of goal, and I’m not going to lose those just because he scored two very good goals on Saturday and showed that actually he can score the ‘tougher’ chances too. But I’ve also always stayed open and ready to change my opinion, but that can come over time. Jackson was super raw when he arrived here, but is he now getting ripe? Maybe. Time will tell.
Now when you look at socials or any Chelsea fan community, Jackson is loved and everyone is praising him, and he deserves it. It just goes to show how fast a narrative can change though. Is that just Jackson developing? Probably.
I still believe he is a bigger threat off the left and see him as a wide player rather than centrally. But what he has been doing lately is a scary prospect for defenders. When he collects the ball, turns and runs, defenders cannot cope with him.
Apparently Edson Alvarez threatened to kill Enzo Fernandez after the game on Saturday, but I reckon that is just because he was so p*ssed off with Jackson sending him to Tesco and back to get him something to celebrate his goal with after he got nowhere near him for the opener.
Jackson has been great, and if he can continue showing improvements with his finishing, then there is no reason at all that my concerns and doubts cannot be squashed entirely. No striker is going to finish every chance, but Jackson’s finishing is improving, and if he can just keep that elevating in an upwards direction, then he will really be proving his critics and doubters wrong.
People like John Obi Mikel has rightly mentioned his concerns about Jackson’s finishing, but even he will be complimenting Jackson this week I am sure of it.
We must always remember Didier Drogba and how bad he was in his first season here. But then look what happened, the man became a Chelsea legend and was only ever getting praise. Jackson could get there if he keeps improving, why not?
But the fact here is that signing SO many raw players at once and not balancing that out with more established players, was always going to me more of a risky strategy in my opinion, and many others too including people like Joe Cole and Frank Lampard who have both mentioned this as well. But it’s also a strategy that could pay off but will just take time. My question is and always has been, do we have that time?
Let’s see what happens this season and the next games coming up. I am absolutely not going to get ahead of myself here or too excited. It’s a long season and we have some very tough games coming up, these will really test our quality and whether our raw players are getting ripe or not. Some big tests of character and mentality coming up.