Looks to be a very good player. Not only his finishing impressive, his back to goal play is amazing from what I've seen. Could prove to be an excellent buy by Chelsea.
Nicholas Jackson
- Thread starter Amadaeus
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A Danny Welbeck with goals is one of the best strikers in the world.
This Brighton striker scored a couple of goals yesterday, the one I've seen was a really good CF's goal. Seems to be just us that makes an issue out of finding a striker.
Isn't he a winger? Either way, two very good goals.
It's definitely a bad period for strikers, the worst in my lifetime. It's the main reason big clubs are gambling on players who have been playing at 1st team level for less than 12 months. I mean someone like Jackson looks good and all but he only started scoring goals at that level in the last 2 months of last season.
Well it seems United also have found one and are going big for him , whether we agree with that Choice is a different matter all together .
He could be, the article I read called him a striker.
I'm sorry.
Nic Jackson?
Nic Jackson?
Joao Pedro played up top, with Simon Adingra on the left wing.
You honestly think it's OK for a Chelsea manager to not finish in a CL spot? Happy with 8th place? Excuse me but wtf are you on about. You don't spend the most money in the world on players and are fine with no CL football 2 years in a row. The owner, who's all about image and branding, will not stand for it.
Just to be clear. Liverpool have not strengthened. We haven't really strengthened. Brighton has weakened if anything. City too. Spurs are losing Kane. What exactly are you worried about from other teams? There are 5 CL spots. Chelsea not getting one would be a disaster and Poch would be fired. No doubt about it.
True. Prime Welbeck was always a good talented player but he's always been a shit goalscorer. Even to this day his best goalscoring seasons were at United where he scored 9 PL goals twice but in the last 9 years he's never scored more than 6 league goals in a season.
As for Jackson, his numbers last season for Villarreal were already quite good. He started off a bit slow but when he became a regular starter in the side he was banging in the goals for fun. It remains to be seen whether it was more of a purple patch or if things just really started to click for him. The transfer was based on so little amount of football that it's difficult to say whether he can keep it up or if he'll fall to mediocrity once his form dries up but at the price we paid for him it's not a bad gamble at all and the early signs in pre-season look quite promising.
Ideally I'm sure we'd have wanted to see how he does on a longer period of time but first of all we desperately needed a new striker in right now, and also if we had skipped on the signing now and he went on to have a +20 goal season for Villarreal I'm not convinced we'd have even been the front runners for him anymore. Finding top strikers in this day and age seems to be really hard for everyone and whenever a striker starts showing even a bit of promise there'll immediately be many top clubs looking at them and the prices seem to reach insane proportions really fast too like witnessed with the likes of Nunez, Osimhen, Muani, Vlahovic etc.
For £32M and on what I would assume to be quite reasonable wages (considering he was only on €10K/wk at his former club) this is exactly the kind of deal I want us to make. Far too many of our big money signings have ultimately failed to live up to expectations but we've had much better success rate with our signings around the £30-40M mark. And it's not just a Chelsea issue, if we look at the top20 biggest deals in world football there seems to be way more flops than there have been successes.
I'll start by saying I personally don't think 8th is anywhere close to being 'good enough' for us, but I still very much disagree with you on the highlighted bit.
Liverpool have absolutely strengthened. Szoboslai and MacAllister are both quality signings for their midfield which was starting to get stale with ageing players and they'll almost certainly get Lavia in as well. Having a strong midfield core is what makes a Klopp team tick so replacing the declining oldsters with some good new players with more gas left on their tanks means they'll be almost guaranteed to improve. They'll also now have Gakpo for the full season instead of just half so that's a bonus for them.
Arsenal have gotten stronger with their few key signings and have only lost Xhaka. Newcastle have made a couple of good signings, especially Tonali, and will probably still go for some more additions later in the window. At United you have addressed one of your weaknesses with the Onana signing by getting a keeper more comfortable with the ball, Mount is a quality addition too and signs are pointing towards you guys improving your striker options too. It's also going to be ETH's second season in charge so he'll have had more time to fine tune the team so no matter what happens in the market we should be seeing some improvements for that alone, yeah?
Whether City have strengthened or weakened is irrelevant because even a weakened City side is still nailed on for top-2 and miles ahead of everyone else in squad quality. About Spurs I'm not worried about in the slightest, they're shite and will continue to be shite. Even more so if Kane goes.
With our squad having been basically turned inside out and having a new manager in charge too, it's good to understand it can take a bit of time to build some consistency. If we can get a quality addition in midfield (Caicedo) I do think we'll go on to have a much, much better season than last year but with City, Arsenal, United, Newcastle and Liverpool all being strong teams I don't think it's going to be entirely fair to call it some massive failure if we just about miss out on top-4, as long as there is some significant progress and things are clearly starting to move in the right direction. We definitely have to be somewhere in the mix for the UCL spots though, that's the minimum expectation for me. If we play some good stuff and end up missing CL by just a few points I don't Poch would be getting the boot but if we're like 6th or 7th and miles off the pace with 15-20 points behind and the hunt for CL places is over by January then obviously it's not going to be a good look on the manager. Things need to be reviewed in the right context and it's not so black and white as 'no CL for Chelsea = manager sacked'. And that's coming from someone who doesn't even particularly rate Poch as a manager, though I have to say I'm warming up to him a bit.
We've cleared out a lot of dead weight from the squad but have also lost some really good players too. The additions of Jackson, Nkunku, Gusto and Colwill seem promising but like I said above we still need that top midfielder signed to partner with Enzo. Our squad is probably on average the youngest in the league so despite a ton of money being spent, it was largely spent on potential for future growth and less so on the here and now, though immediate results are also important. By replacing some proven veterans with young players we've also trimmed down our salary bill by a considerable amount so a bit of context for the spending is important. I think the squad has a lot of potential for success but I for one won't be throwing my toys out of the pram if things don't end up clicking immediately.
As for the 5 CL spots for PL clubs that's by no means guaranteed and will require the English clubs to do well in Europe, something which is going to be totally out of our hands for the season.
I didn't mention "young striker talent" in the second post either, but young footballers in general, meaning that now the scouting is on a different level and players can be unnearthed much earlier compared to 25 years ago, scouts have more data and should be more precise in evaluation, follow their development and so on. And there's plenty of quality CF options on the market at this moment also young and old.
You mentioned Kane, but tell me how often in the history of the PL has a striker talent like Kane been available for a transfer? Not often. Now a talent like him is set to move clubs and we are supposedly out of the race.
I am not complaining, just pointing out the absurdity of some claims. 1 year ago there was lack of CDM options out there and so on.
Nicholas Jackson is just too boring a name for a top striker, so I’ll have to conclude he’s wank.
Again, who are these quality CFs, both young and old?
He goes by Nico, so he is good.
Haaland, Mbappe, Kane, Hojlund, Mouani, Ferguson, Gouri, David, Martinez, Vlahovic, Osimhen, Benzema, Lewandowski, Schick, Haller, Ramos spring immediately to mind. Are they not quality strikers?
A little bit of good, a little bit of old and a little bit of average.
Haaland isn't available and wouldn't come anyway.
Mbappe is going to Saudi or Real Madrid.
Kane is too expensive for us.
Gouiri is very interesting, but also inconsistent which is probably why he plays for France U21. Jonathan David is also a good shout, but operates from the left similarly to Rashford. Martinez isn't good enough.
Vlahovic is crap.
Osimhen is too expensive.
Benzema signed for a Saudi club.
Lewandowski isn't on the market.
Schick isn't good enough.
Haller isn't good enough.
Muani is about as much of a striker as Rashford.
So that leaves very few strikers on the market, especially that are realistic to us.
Ramos will be very pricy and cost a lot more than Højlund, but got good potential.
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I still can't believe it.. I'm dreaming, that ball would still be in the sky somewhere if that was HavertzJackson. Already a legend. Scoring 1 vs 1 as chelsea striker that's enough for me.
So there are striker talents out there, but we are either too late, too poor and can’t afford them or too arrogant that we describe Vlahovic as crap but we played with Weghorst for half a season?!?
See my post above, you are probably right, but we have no one and loaned Weghorst from Burnley. An average Haller is miles better than what we have. Not to mention players like Watkins and Toney who are also capable strikers.
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Let's be real, Benzema wasn't coming here with Saudi knocking on the door for a final paycheck.
And yes, in case you haven't noticed, we got to be careful with FFP in mind, so even if I wanted Osimhen here, we're just not going to spend €150m on him. Same for Kane.
As for Vlahovic: we played with Weghorst, who is crap, but signing Vlahovic really wouldn't make a massive difference. He is just not that good.
It's not exactly a secret that the level of strikers these days is not the same it was 10 years ago. Suarez, van Persie, Lewandowski, Benzema, Agüero, Ibrahimovic, Cavani, Falcao, Rooney, Mandzukic, Tevez, Dzeko + more.
Some of these still play, but at a much lower level than back then.
True. However, we clearly feel that Højlund is the best fit considering price, current ability, potential and availability.
That's a lot of text for a highlighted bit that you didn't disagree much with. You only disagreed with me about Liverpool. I didn't mention Arsenal or Newcastle because I think they've strengthened. So you think City, United, Newcastle and Arsenal are competition. That's 4 teams. It would absolutely be shambles if Chelsea don't make it to the CL after spending 700m+ on a squad that was already in the CL. That you still need a midfielder after all this is not an excuse.
It doesn't matter that it takes time to add consistency. This is Chelsea. You spend money, you feck off the manager at the hint of bad form. Not being in the CL is a failure. That's your culture.
I am not disputing Hojlund in the slightest. From the obvious pool of strikers only Kane I'd prefer, but if not Hojlund there's other solid options that might surprise us, just like Jackson is doing at Chelsea.
We've got FFP problems because we spent recklessly last summer and it's no excuse when dealing in such a crucial position this summer. Both Kane and Osimhen are top quality striker and just what we need, but we are ill prepared.
I disagree about Vlahovic, he is quality. Milles better fit than someone like Mandzukic that you mention as a quality option 10 years ago.
Nonetheless I don't want to derail the thread about Jackson, I am obviously jealous at Chelsea. Hope we get Hojlund and he outscores him by 20 goals in the next 10 years.
Gotten rid of like 15 players from that CL squad. Signed 15 players. Received almost 300M in outgoing fees. The only players remaining from the team that won the CL 2 years ago is Chilwell, Kepa, Silva and James. It’s a brand new squad with a brand new coach.
Nick Jackson
Fecking hell flop much?
Fecking hell flop much?
Surely you're trolling? What exactly makes Vlahovic quality? He is not even better than Mitrovic.
You're having a laugh for suggesting Vlahovic is miles better than Mandzukic
Did you even see Mandzukic play? Lukaku is Ronaldo Nazario compared to elbow merchant Mandzukic. And I said better fit, you clearly read only what you want to. Vlahovic is 23 at the same age Mario was still playing in Croatia so laughs are on you here buddy.Surely you're trolling? What exactly makes Vlahovic quality? He is not even better than Mitrovic.
You're having a laugh for suggesting Vlahovic is miles better than Mandzukic
So hypothetically, if you had prime Hazard and sold him for 100m, lost Reece James on a free, then bought Antony for 100m and a youngster for 20-30m - you would argue it would be a shambles if the team never improved becaused 130m was spent... That's not how football works.
Also ignoring that only about 70% of the total spent since the takeover has been for immediate first team signings. And 100m was spent on making the squad whole after the previous regime lost 2 senior CBs for free.
Talk about underrating Mandzukic. I'm not saying he was world class, but the way you go on about him.. talking as if he's Peter Crouch.
The fact that you say better fit makes it even worse. Mandzukic would be the perfect striker for Ten Hag with his hold-up, strength and pressing, whereas Vlahovic would be far from it. Do you not think we would be in for Vlahovic if he was such a good fit?
He has even scored less open-play goals than Højlund despite playing more than him, and he is also 3 years older.
As for your last part, that is completely irrelevant. Fernandinho was playing in Ukraine at 27, while Sean Longstaff played in Premier League at the age of 20. Do you think Longstaff is better than Fernandinho?
Modric played in Croatia at 21, and Conor Gallagher in Premier League at 19. Is Gallagher better than Modric?
I did not say he was Crouch, but you were the one claiming Vlahovic wasn't any better than Weghorst. Mandzukic was a workhorse, and no he isn't the perfect striker for ETH.
We obviously feel Hojlund has more potential that Vlahovic but that does not mean that the latter is crap like you are claiming.
And no I did not go comparing random players to Fernandinho or Modric, you did. You mentioned Mandzukic in your list, while ridiculing Vlahovic on mine, I think you are being absurd.
He looks good, I can't lie
I look forward to when he fails to convert a easy chance so I can say
look at that miss, Jackson ooooooo
Are you for real.
look at that miss, Jackson ooooooo
Are you for real.
So you agree that Arsenal and Newcastle, both of whom were already miles ahead of us, have improved their squads and probably also agree with me that City are and will be way ahead of us no matter what Pochettino does this season? So that's three teams who are by definition stronger than us which then leaves us battling with United/Liverpool/Tottenham for the last CL place and you think it's some massive catastrophe and an automatic sack for the manager if we can't pull it off?
And are you disputing the fact we are in desperate need of a new midfielder? Mind you in midfield we have sold or otherwise lost Kante, Kovacic, Mount, Loftus-Cheek and even the loanee Zakaria from last season and as of yet haven't brought in anyone. Five players out and zero players in and you think it's just an excuse?
As for the 'culture' how the heck should you know what the club culture is like these days? Tuchel's sacking had nothing to do with the results and I'm 100% certain Potter wouldn't have been sacked if he didn't have us actually battling against fecking relegation. Qualifying for the CL is absolutely going to be the club's target for this season but if we do end up missing out it will be important to see how close we came and also make a review as to how and why it happened. If it's happened because our squad just took a while to get going at the start of the season but nearing the end we're playing some really good football with good results then of course he's not fecking getting sacked, but if Poch has us falling towards midtable again and it's clear we're way off pace for CL qualification then he will certainly be sacked and rightfully so.
Just out of curiosity, would you have been in favor of Erik Ten Hag getting sacked if you had failed to get top4 last season?
Wasn’t he pretty poor up until around January, and Villarreal were trying to punt him to Bournemouth? His game looks quite suited to the PL though.
What is the Chelsea starting lineup gonna be next season?
Crap.
Apparently, he failed his medical after Bournemouth agreed to a £22m transfer.