Unlike most of his Chelsea compadres, Nicolas Jackson got to experience life on a winning team this season as Bayern Munich completed their latest league-and-cup double. He may not have featured as much as he might have wished, but he still managed to get into double digits for goals (11) for the fourth successive season, while making 34 appearances (15 starts) across all competitions.
Hopefully he enjoyed that experience, because winning may be a bit harder to come by next season. Those numbers were
good, but not quite good enough to trigger the clause in his loan contract that would’ve forced Bayern to fork over €65m and keep him for good. They’re instead sending him back to Chelsea.
But that may yet work out satisfactorily for all involved. As the Mail and the BBC report, Jackson’s expected to be back in the mix at Chelsea, and set to compete with Liam Delap and the incoming Emmanuel Emegha for the job at center forward alongside the entrenched João Pedro. (Marc Guiu doesn’t even get a mention.)
One might imagine that Delap is — by some distance — at the bottom of the pecking order in that quartet as things stand, but even three strikers may be too many given our lack of European football next season.
The decision is said to be up to the club (including new manager Xabi Alonso), but a transfer for Jackson isn’t being ruled either were an “offer too good to turn down” arrive “suddenly”. No one expects the sudden offer too good to turn down! (Or are we?)
Can Jackson impress Alonso at the World Cup? He might still be busy with all that by the time our preseason begins, but it’s not like there’s any shortage of tape for Alonso to review either way.
