Chelsea relieved Liverpool rejected shock ‘research’ as ​​Neville’s £96m comparison was refuted

Nicolas Jackson and Darwin Nunez find themselves chaotically linked, but one is proving himself to be an experienced Premier League striker, while the other is playing for Liverpool.

It feels like perception and reality are rarely as diametrically opposed in football as they are with Nicolas Jackson.

A 23-year-old with remarkably limited previous professional experience, scoring 18 goals and providing eight assists in 42 games in a new league under two different managers, would not normally be a cause for constant ridicule. But a £32m fee he has not set, and Chelsea’s bordering-on-crisis nature over the past two years, have made Jackson the prime subject for jibes from rivals.

It’s a respectable record for any club, let alone one built on such uncertain foundations. Jackson in particular is expected to perform under constant scrutiny that few other players are exposed to.

Even after starting the season with four goals and three assists – only a dozen players can beat that in Europe’s top five leagues so far – the focus is on whom Chelsea should replace the Senegalese with in January to inspire a title push neither predicted in summer, nor particularly realistic to continue well beyond winter, if at all.

It’s a reflex that Chelsea has undeniably encouraged. The holistic nature of squad building can make the line between incompetence and ingenuity virtually undetectable, which is to say that it has only recently been possible to properly understand Clearlake’s continued extravagant spending and ruthless recruitment. It seems like they did it almost by accident sometimes, but one of the most powerful attacks in the world was engineered anyway. And while Cole Palmer is the heart and soul of it, Jackson has become the poster child for taking a delectable mess of raw ingredients and gradually refining the recipe over time.

But even throughout the summer, Chelsea’s focus on a new centre-forward was common knowledge. Their scouting department should wisely nod to Jhon Duran’s career outburst and continued development of Samu Omorodion. The Blues’ strategy hasn’t always been clear, but in terms of talent identification these teething problems have been carefully dealt with with quite a few implants, not even all of them from Brighton.

Maybe they still have a folder on Darwin Nunez, even if one is quickly gathering dust. Liverpool rebuffed an approach for the Uruguayan from Stamford Bridge more than a year ago and may regret their haste.

Jurgen Klopp’s pet project has been abandoned by Arne Slot. While Liverpool’s laptop gurus defended Christopher Nkunku in the summer of 2022, it was the German who successfully pushed for Nunez, not only for a rare display of managerial autocracy at Anfield, but also for a lack of forward planning. Liverpool would never have approved a move based on vibes rather than data at their operational peak But to do so shortly before the manager’s departure and saddle his successor with someone else’s £64 million burden is the kind of trait most associated with a certain kind of erratic club. Sunday’s opponents, for example.

Slot has managed Klopp’s transfer admirably, keeping the Nunez conundrum low on his priority list despite inheriting the composite parts of an elite striker; those pieces have already amassed more than twice as many Uruguay minutes as Liverpool this season and the only surprise is that Nunez has played that much for his club.

Chelsea was perhaps the perfect home. Jackson has started every game and has benefited from a patience that most Blues managers don’t show. His competition for places is not that fierce, but the two players Gary Neville once described as ‘a handful’ who dorunning a lot” and “bothering people” but being “just a bit scrappy” for goals are on completely different trajectories at the moment.

While it increasingly feels that way Liverpool should consider cutting their losses on NunezJackson’s progress at Chelsea has gone under the radar. Its high ceiling was already well known, but the floor for performance levels has been raised in a way that seemingly goes beyond its chaos sibling on Merseyside.