Paul Merson believes that Chelsea will advance to the Champions League semi-finals – if they can avoid two teams in the draw.
After a terrible run of results, Graham Potter’s side appear to have finally found their groove and are currently on a three-game winning run which includes a 2-0 victory over Borussia Dortmund that secured their place in the UCL quarter-finals.
They’ll learn the identity of their opponents on Friday once the round of 16 fixtures have been completed with Bayern Munich, AC Milan and Benfica currently in the draw with the Blues.
That quartet will be joined by either Manchester City or RB Leipzig, Real Madrid or Liverpool, Inter Milan or Porto and Napoli or Frankfurt.
However, Merson believes that only two of those potential opponents should give Chelsea reason to be concerned claiming that they can and should be able to keep up the winning ways if the draw is favourable.
‘It was an outstanding week for Chelsea, with wins over Leeds, Dortmund and Leicester, and now with Everton at home next they can get on a roll,’ the Arsenal legend wrote for Sky Sports.
‘If the Champions League quarter-final draw goes their way, bar Man City and Bayern Munich, I don’t think too many teams will want to play Chelsea. If they don’t meet those two then I think they’ll get through to the semi-finals.’
City and Bayern are the two favourites to win Europe’s biggest prize this season, the latter especially after winning all eight of the games so far in the competition, including both legs of their round of 16 tie with PSG.
The Citizens meanwhile are not guaranteed to be in Friday’s draw having only managed a 1-1 draw in Leipzig with the second-leg set to take place on Tuesday night at the Etihad.
The Champions League is the only trophy left that Chelsea can win and may be their only way of securing a place in the competition for next season, with the club still 11 points off the Premier League top four despite the impressive win at Leicester last Saturday.
‘Chelsea are a dangerous animal, they’ve got some unbelievable players and they just need to click – at times against Leicester they did,’ Merson added.
‘Bad teams don’t score the goals like they did, two of them were unbelievable. Kai Havertz’s flick has to go down as one of the goals of the season, you’re not seeing that on a Sunday morning.
‘Graham Potter has switched to three at the back and it’s working. It’s taken a while for him to get it right but it’s 100 per cent better than with four in defence.’
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