The Africa Cup of Nations is in full swing, and compared to some teams, Chelsea aren’t too badly affected.
While some sides are missing 3 or even 4 players, the Blues have lost just one. The flipside of that is that it’s Nicolas Jackson, our main striker, a player with quite a unique role and one who has been an undisputed starter all season. It’s been a real struggle to get this group and this team into shape for Mauricio Pochettino as injury has constantly picked off his best players. Jackson has been one of the few able to play consistently since the start of preseason, and now he’s gone.
So what are our chances of getting him back sooner rather than later? We’re already halfway through January, and the final is on the 11th of February. When are we likely to be able to slot Jackson back into our starting team?
We could be waiting a while, according to the bookies. Most outlets like AFCON betting sites in Tanzania have Jackson’s Senegal as second favourites for the whole tournament, implying that they will make it all the way to the final in February, or close to it.
They started their campaign on Monday with an easy 3-0 win over Gambia. They’ve got quality throughout the team, from former Blues like goalie Edouard Mendy in goal and defender Kalidou Koulibaly in defence through to Sadio Mane and Ismaila Sarr up top.
This, combined with poor vintages from traditional powerhouses like Ghana and Ivory Coast makes it easy to see why the Lions of Teranga are fancied to go far.
We’re happy for Nico and want to see him do well out there, but that means he’s likely to miss the next 5 games of ours, including the second leg of our EFL Cup final against Middlesbrough.
The only consolation is that he doesn’t look like he’s going to rack up crazy minutes in the tournament and burn himself out. He came on as a sub in the first game, and while some rotation is to be expected, especially if they make it out of the group early, it does at least look like he won’t be playing 90 minutes every time.
So let’s wish good luck to Nicolas – you can wish all you want he was available for Chelsea, but now he’s out there with his country we’d love to see him win the thing and come back to us full of confidence with a medal.
