Former Chelsea defender, Mario Melchiot has warned Nicolas Jackson his Chelsea teammates will start to ignore him unless he starts to convert more of the opportunities he’s given.

Jackson has scored seven goals for Chelsea this season, but it could be more, with the 22-year-old having missed numerous chances. His latest misses came in his side’s 2-1 win against Crystal Palace on Wednesday.

Melchiot told ESPN: “Today I watched him and he’s making it very, very hard for himself. The competition is there, I know Poch said he needs time and time is really the difficult part but [Christopher] Nkunku I like what he’s doing and I hope he keeps progressing but Jackson I don’t know.

“I was never a striker. He has the speed and the power but he doesn’t have the calmness in his head that I feel a proper striker needs. He’s not an old guy, he’s still got time but the only thing he needs to work on is the calmness.

“If you look at the ultimate strikers who played for Chelsea, I give you an example of my time with [Jimmy Floyd] Hasselbaink or [Didier] Drogba, those guys were calm when they came in front of goal. When they get one opportunity… sometimes they’d fall out with you if you didn’t give them the ball.

“He [Jackson] needs to get himself to that level because people are going to start thinking, ‘Should I give it to him or should I finish it myself?’. I don’t want him to be in that position because strikers never want to be in that position.”