TOO SOON FOR JANSEN?
Jansen has certainly come on in leaps and bounds since his league debut with hometown club Carlisle United in October 1996. A £1m move to Crystal Palace followed in 1998, and 10 goals from 26 appearances later the London club made a fourfold profit by selling the player to Blackburn Rovers.
It would be fair to say that Jansen's 23 goals from 40 league appearances went some way towards helping Blackburn to promotion last season and so far during 2001-02 he has put away three Premiership strikes (in addition to four in other competitions for Rovers). He has been accurate with his shooting - a 46% overall accuracy is above the average for the Premiership, if unlikely to have Sven on the phone by itself.
He has, however, had 37 attempts on goal during the campaign, with just 8% of his efforts finding their way into the back of the net. This does not compare favourably to other potential England forwards - for example new Rovers colleague Andy Cole, whose goals-to-shots ratio at Manchester United was an impressive 20% before his move.
"Mr Eriksson hasn't chosen his squad yet and a lot of England strikers are having dips in form," said Jansen. Emile Heskey was one man picked out as possibly not showing enough to make the final squad: "He is a quality striker but he's struggling for goals."
This is perhaps a little harsh on the Liverpool striker, who has indeed netted just twice this term but from only 18 attempts on goal. The proportion of his chances taken is therefore more impressive than Jansen's, although with only a third of his shots troubling the opposing 'keeper it is certainly true that in terms of accuracy Jansen outshines the Reds player.
Jansen has also declared that he wants to play 'the Teddy Sheringham role' alongside Cole at Blackburn, perhaps playing slightly behind his team-mate and setting him up as often as possible. The Spurs player is another whose possible World Cup place Jansen may covet - with a similar proportion of chances taken and accurate efforts, they have had an equally successful 2001-02. Unfortunately that would suggest the older man would get the nod for his wealth of experience.
Jansen has however shown the type of play necessary to become a fine support striker - he has provided three assists as well as his trio of goals.
There can be little doubt that Jansen is a fine forward player, but his claims for a place in the World Cup squad may be a little premature. A number of other strikers with hopes of a call-up have better accuracy and goals-to-shots statistics than the Blackburn man, including Robbie Fowler, Alan Smith and even England under-21 star Darius Vassell.
There is a slim chance that Jansen may be called upon to fill the troublesome left midfield spot, but even then a cross completion rate of 15% is not likely to have overly impressed the England boss. Jansen's day will surely come, but his chances of doing a job for his country this summer are likely to remain no more than a pipedream.
