Street football to Premier League: Nicolas Jackson’s road to Chelsea

Striker has grasped second chance with both hands after the pain of a failed move to England led to a Villarreal goal glut

They hadn’t expected him but Villarreal awaited Nicolas Jackson with open arms when he landed back in Spain on board the same plane in which he had left. It was late January and the journey, supposed to be one way, hadn’t gone as planned. He had flown to England to join Bournemouth for €25m, their saviour, but a failed medical forced a return, his big opportunity gone. At 21, still on a B team contract six months since he was playing in the third tier, and with just eight first division starts and a hamstring injury that would limit him to a solitary minute until April, he didn’t know if another would come.

The answer, to their surprise, was: soon. “We will try to cheer him up, to encourage him because it was a great opportunity. We’ll support him, help him overcome this disappointment and strengthen him so that when the summer comes he is worth twice as much,” the Villarreal coach Quique Setién said. And while few imagined it would pan out like that, he wasn’t so far off. Despite what had happened in January, five months later Jackson flew to England again and this time there was no turning back. On Sunday he joined Chelsea for £32m on an eight-year deal.