Paul Merson talks about Chelsea: Blues' goal next season must be the Champions League | Soccer News

Paul Merson explains why Chelsea should return to the Champions League next season in his latest column…

Merce also spoke about why West Ham regret letting go of David Moyes and his concerns over Tottenham's lack of a plan B under Ange Postecoglou, saying: “We have done nothing wrong.'' He sympathizes with Arsenal, who believe they will be eliminated in the title race despite the fact that they have not yet won the title.

Chelsea must aim for the Champions League next season

Chelsea are not stable enough. They have done well in cup competitions – that happens sometimes with young teams.

They are doing well at the moment, fair play, they have qualified for Europe. For me, they have to play – they got to the final, semi-final, both were very unlucky, but it could still turn out not to be a bad season.

But they have to go buy players and not sit back and think they were right all along. No, it's not. It is located a few miles from Man City and Arsenal. You have to look at the big picture.

I have to gain experience in the summer. It looks like Thiago Silva will be on the move, he is the main experienced player in the team.

So they need to be able to calm it down a little bit if they want to be consistent when things aren't going too well on top of that. Silva probably needs an experienced centre-half to replace him, but another centre-forward would also be fine.

They should be aiming to qualify for next year's Champions League. Therefore, they must start by closing the gap with Arsenal and Man City.

This is Chelsea, this is not your average team. Chelsea are used to winning and want to win – rather than celebrate by finishing fourth in the league, as Tottenham might have wanted.

Nothing surprising, but I don't see why Pock won't coach next season. I never thought he should be fired, he's a good manager. He won't win anything individually, but if he sorts it out and continues to play now as a team, he'll be fine.

I would have kept Moise – I've seen this happen before.

West Ham must be careful what they wish for. Mr. Moyes uprooted the tree there and won the European trophy. He once again maintained his position in the top half, taking 7th, 8th, and 9th place.

I'm not saying it's going to happen overnight, what happened to Charlton, but many years ago when I was playing, the fans were calling for Alan Curbishley to be removed and he was boring in the middle of the table and he wanted to kick him. I remember him saying that. upon.

They have never been seen since. This manager is top, top drawer. They won the European trophy! That's just crazy.

One month of Sundays wouldn't have been enough to get rid of him. West Ham fans will come back and say this and that and spout all the statistics in the world. But I'll throw in the biggest stat of them all. he. he won. you. A. Trophy.

I don't care about this funny football, we're not playing that well, we have to do better with these players. They won the trophy! If you look at Arsenal, they are incredibly strong and they could end up not getting anything.

Arsenal have done nothing wrong – and they're not going to win the league yet

As I said before, the only game that could give Man City trouble is Fulham. What opportunities do Tottenham have at the moment? Do West Ham have a chance? This is the only game.

Fulham played Brentford last week and were 0-0. But the moment Man City scored, I couldn't see Fulham scoring two or three. I hope they have a tough game, but when Arsenal lost to Aston Villa a while ago, I said we didn't give them a chance.

To be honest, they did a good job of staying there. They haven't done anything wrong, except for one game against a good team – but now they can't win a game! This is why people keep playing in big clubs – this is the difference, everyone wants to beat you.

Since then, Villa have held out against Chelsea, suffered a turnover at Olympiakos and lost to Brighton.

Fulham is the saloon of last chances. If they win that game, it's over.

Ange cannot afford to repeat the season next year.

As I said before, it won't be the same next year for Tottenham. This is one of those situations where you look at it and think, oh, free hit, free hit, this is so much better than last year.

But there's no way they'll be like this next year, they'll lose four or five, and there's no plan B. But that's what happened.

Everyone jumped on the set pieces. He'll work on them – this guy is a good coach. But every time he concedes a point here, he's in trouble.

Everyone loved him, unless you were an Arsenal fan, and the press loved him too. Everyone is jumping on him now.

I like Ange, don't get me wrong. As a neutral, he's great. If you're a fan, you're not sure. It's easy for a Celtic manager to stick to that philosophy. “We’re going to go out and play some front foot football.”

You can't do that at Tottenham. No disrespect, but you can do that at Celtic. If you open up the game there, you have a shot, we have a shot and you win the game. Not so with Spurs.

You have to be cute, that's why guys like Mourinho and Conte came out and played like they did. They could go out there and play like that and weigh it up and say they're going to win a lot of games, but in the big games, they're going to wash out.

He has to change from next season. Tottenham fans are already getting restless. Their season depends on whether they can stop Arsenal from winning the league. We can't continue like this, and the players have to stand up.

Madison has returned from injury but has yet to touch a ball. It wasn't just the manager, he was injured too, but we couldn't just keep doing what we were doing. I like him and I like how they play, but if you're a fan, that's not good enough.