Chelsea and his former club Aston Villa will fall short.
Although the Arsenal legend has supported Chelsea his entire life, he doesn’t believe Enzo Maresca’s side will secure a spot in Europe’s premier competition.
Thanks to the strong performances of English clubs in European tournaments, the Premier League has been awarded an additional Champions League spot this season.
Liverpool, the near-certain league champions, have already clinched their place in next season’s competition, while second-placed Arsenal appear secure barring an extraordinary collapse.
This leaves Manchester City, Nottingham Forest, Newcastle, Chelsea, and Villa fighting for the likely three remaining spots.
Despite Chelsea being seen as title contenders earlier in the season, Merson doubts his childhood club will manage to qualify for Europe’s elite competition next year.
“As it stands at the moment, I would say, I think it’ll be Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City, Newcastle and Nottingham Forest,” the ex-Villa midfielder told Sky Sports.
“Chelsea, it is in their hands in a way because they’ve got Newcastle and Forest to play, but if you look at the fixtures, Chelsea haven’t got a give-me in any of their fixtures. They’ve got difficult games – Everton, Liverpool, Man United, Forest, Newcastle – difficult games.
“You look at Forest and you look at Newcastle, one of them’s got Leicester and one of them’s got Ipswich [left to play]. For me they’re absolute give-me games, so you can give them those games.
“I think Chelsea are up against it, they’ll have to go and pull up trees at St James’ Park and if they can get down to a last-day shootout against Nottingham Forest at the City Ground, I think Chelsea take that now.”
Chelsea manager Maresca said after Sunday’s 2-1 win against Fulham that his team have had a good campaign which will become ‘very good’ should they qualify for the Champions League.
“Personally, the [winning] goal from Pedro [Neto] doesn’t change my view of the season,” the Blues manager explained post-match.
“I said three or four days ago, and I will repeat, Chelsea in the last two years have never been in the Champions League spots and this season we spent all season there. “So today’s win doesn’t change my view. It’s already a good season and can become very good if we finish in the Champions League spots, no doubt.”
“But for sure, today was an important win because first of all it’s a derby, second, it gives us the chance to be there. And probably it was the most difficult win, and the reason why is because they (league rivals) all played yesterday.”
