Long-time readers of this blog will consider the following a familiar refrain: "Simeon Jackson is fuckin' awesome." So I, like many other Canadian fans, was delighted to see that after essentially single-handedly winning Gillingham promotion in 2009, Jacko found his own career in the ascendancy with a move to Norwich City earlier this year.
Having been just promoted themselves (to the Championship, from League One), the Canaries weren't considered major contenders for promotion to the Premiership in 2010-11, even after a hot start saw them win six of their first 10 league games. "It's smoke and mirrors," the pundits scoffed. "They'll come back down to earth as the season goes on."
Frankly, I kinda hoped the pundits were right, since I figured that the closer Norwich got to the potential of actual promotion, the more they'd likely lean on veterans such as captain Grant Holt, at the expense of newbies like Jackson. (And as we've seen in the case of guys like David Edgar and Junior Hoilett, wasting away on the bench of a Premiership side doesn't do much for your career with club or country... so the novelty of having Jackson technically on the roster of a Premiership side was wholly uncompelling.)
Yet here we are, in the new year, and NCFC is still right in the thick of things, sitting in third in a three-way points-even logjam between Cardiff and Swansea. The entire Championship is incredibly competitive, in fact, with 12th-place Leicester sitting only four points adrift of sixth place (the final play-off spot).
We've got a promotion dogfight on our hands, folks. And that could be bad news for Canada.
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The numbers seem to bear out my theory that Jackson's role has changed as the pressure on the team has increased. He's made 23 appearances (22 league, 1 Carling Cup) for Norwich so far this season.
The first 11 of those appearances broke down as:
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6 starts, with an average of 82.5 minutes played (72, 90, 72, 81, 90, 90)
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3 games playing the full 90 (Aug. 24 v Blackburn [Cup], Oct. 16 v. QPR, Oct. 19 v. Crystal Palace)
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5 appearances as a substitute, with an average of 10.4 minutes played (80', 81', 78', 80', 79')
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+ 3 games as an unused substitute
Those back-to-back full 90 appearances came after Jackson's best performance so far, a 3-0 win over Bristol City in which he scored a brace (accounting for half of his four goals this season). But beginning with a good start to the next half of the campaign-to-date (with a goal in a 1-0 win over Middlesbrough), the dynamic changes in his next 12 appearances:
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7 starts, with an average of 64.6 minutes played (70, 62, 63, 79, 67, 46, 65)
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0 games playing the full 90
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5 appearances as a substitute, with an average of 17.2 minutes played (65', 68', 62', 85', 84')
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+ 2 games as an unused substitute
Based on those numbers, Jackson's role is clearly shifting. He's not being overlooked, by any stretch of the imagination. But he's being relied upon, more so, to be the second-half offensive boost rather than the team's go-to scoring threat. A super-sub, if you will. Which is fine, if he's getting lots of playing time and responding with production.
Trouble is, he's not. Jackson hasn't scored in his past 11 games (dating back to the Middlesbrough game on Oct. 23), while Holt has found the net seven times in that stretch.
Even more worrying is the Dec. 28 game against Sheffield United. Trailing 2-1 at the break, Norwich manager Paul Lambert saw fit to sub out Jackson only a minute into the second half, introducing midfielder Wes Hoolahan. What did Hoolahan do? Oh, not much. Just a fucking hat trick, earning him the vaunted "super-sub" designation on the Canaries' own website.
So Jackson's not a full-90 guy, and he's not a super-sub. What is he?
That's Lambert's decision to make, of course. I just worry that as the prospect of gaining promotion to the Premiership becomes realer and realer -- with all of the accompanying pressure from fans and ownership -- Lambert will see Jackson as not worth the risk, and decide to rely even more heavily on stalwarts like Holt and Hoolahan when the going gets tough.
The thinking here -- and this is a well-worn trope amongst Canadian soccer fans -- is that having our national team members playing regularly (wherever that may be) is much better for their development and sharpness than having them stapled to the bench (wherever that may be). So in my eyes, if the choice is between Jackson being a regular contributor in the Championship, or a spare part in the Premiership, I'll take the former.
Now, there's always the chance -- and let's knock on wood for this one -- that Jackson could absolutely catch fire as the season winds down, and make himself indispensable to the club as they triumphantly charge into the world's best league. This, obviously, is the most desirable of all possible outcomes. Hell, he's already done it once, at Gillingham. So if you don't feel like being negative (cheering against Norwich City), then you can take a positive angle: cheering for another run of Midas-foot for our pal Simeon.
Or, you can hope against hope that Norwich crashes and burns, and finds itself overtaken by any number of other Championship clubs in the coming weeks. Then, with the club's promotion hopes dashed, Lambert will use the remainder of the season to put Jackson into heavy rotation, in which he'll earn a bulletproof spot on the roster as the Canaries try again next season.
No matter how one approaches it, the reality is, with our national program where it's at, we simply can't afford to have the potential of a guy like Simeon Jackson go to waste.
Since he is -- recent scoring drought notwithstanding -- fuckin' awesome.