Nicolas Jackson has continued silencing his doubters despite a challenging first season at Chelsea. The Senegal international has been forced to take on the goal-scoring responsibilities at Stamford Bridge with injuries plaguing Christopher Nkunku and Armando Broja leaving on loan midway through the season.

In recent months, the Blues' form has significantly improved with Sunday's dominant 5-0 victory against West Ham taking them closer to the Europa League qualification spots. A huge upturn in results has arrived largely because of Chelsea's home form with 17 goals scored and three clean sheets kept from their last four fixtures in west London.

Jackson has scored in three of those games with a brace arriving against the Hammers after Cole Palmer, Conor Gallagher and Noni Madueke had got Chelsea going. The latter also picked up an assist in the second half with Jackson benefitting from his unselfish play, an action that greatly pleased Mauricio Pochettino after the duo's penalty spat against Everton.

"The assist from Noni to Jackson, that showed that we learn, that we are smart," he said. "The situation with the penalty if you remember against Everton, we received many criticisms but a young team always needs to make mistakes, we need to feel this situation to improve.

"We are able to improve it because we are smart and intelligent people. I think today was a great action of Noni to see how the group is starting to live and starting to feel in between them." Another two goals for Jackson has taken his tally up to 16 for the season, and with that, he is now outperforming three other Premier League strikers.

Like Jackson, Rasmus Hojlund arrived in England last summer when he signed for Manchester United in a £72million deal. Injuries have hampered the young forward but a purple patch of form arrived midway through the season to place him on eight league goals and a total of 14 in all competitions.

Elsewhere, Liverpool's Darwin Nunez, brought to Anfield in 2022, has also struggled at points in this campaign with the 24-year-old on just 11 Premier League goals.

Kai Havertz was another to make a big-money move ahead of the 2023/24 season when he joined Arsenal from Chelsea for £65million and despite proving his worth in recent months as a false nine, the Germany international is on 12 league goals, one behind Jackson.

So, despite often being the one criticised most out of the aforementioned quartet, Jackson is outperforming all three of his rivals and a push for next season's golden boot could definitely be on the cards.

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