Psst! Hey! Hey you there! In the absence of a bomba, ya wanna buy a half-baked transfer rumor from an unreliable source?
[opens trench coat] Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
OK, in all seriousness, this is a typical Daily Mail transfer article — there’s no actual bid here, not even reports of formal contact between Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea
over Nicolas Jackson. It’s an entire article based on the idea that Tottenham now have “the 25-year-old Senegalese under consideration.”
So why am I writing this up? Well, it’s a slow morning. But also we know that Tottenham are looking for attacking reinforcements, particularly at the forward and winger positions. Hey, guess who plays as a forward, is unwanted by his current club, and has a proven goal scoring record? That doesn’t make this rumor true — not much would make this a particularly GOOD rumor based on the aforementioned “it’s the Mail” revelation. But Nico Jackson, despite being a Chelsea player, could make Tottenham a better football club so it’s worth talking about.
Jackson spent the last season on loan at Bayern Munich where he scored 8 goals and 1 assist in just over 1000 minutes of action, a fact that somehow completely escaped me all of last season until I looked him up just now. That doesn’t sound like a lot, and it isn’t, but it’s worth noting that Jackson spent the season firmly behind one Harold Kane. You remember him? The guy who used to play for Spurs who scored 36 goals this season at Bayern and who is the presumptive favorite for the Ballon d’Or? Yeah, that guy. So it’s no wonder Jackson didn’t set the world on fire in Munich last season, but he’s still a good player. He actually improved almost all of his per-90 metrics from 2024/25 at Chelsea, which is maybe to be expected since the quality of the Bundesliga isn’t as strong as the Premier League once you get past the top 3-4 teams, but it’s still pretty impressive.
I’ve had my eye on Jackson as a potential Tottenham target for most of the summer and was wondering why he wasn’t at least getting a look from Spurs’ recruitment nerds. Well, now maybe he is? It doesn’t mean, of course, that Spurs are actively going after him as a signing (it’s the Mail, etc.), but for the reported £65m, a figure that probably includes the Premier League inflationary tax, I think Jackson is a pretty solid option. He obviously knows where the goal is and thrives on service. He’s a good finisher, and there’s a decent chance he’d cook under a system like Roberto De Zerbi’s.
This isn’t really a rumor (yet), but it’s plausible and also I’d like it to happen, so it’s definitely worth talking about. He’s no Eli Junior Kroupi, but Nico Jackson is 25, and importantly has all of his limbs (currently) in working order. We should be taking a long look at him, and probably ahead of Cody Gakpo.
