Chelsea host Brentford at Stamford Bridge in a huge game on Saturday afternoon and Paul Merson has given his prediction.<\/p>\n
The match will be Liam Rosenior\u2019s first Premier League game in charge of the Blues, and he\u2019s won one and lost one of his first two games.<\/p>\n
Chelsea desperately need the three points as they look to secure Champions League qualification, and are currently in eighth, two points behind the Bees.
\nPaul Merson makes Chelsea vs Brentford prediction<\/p>\n
Chelsea aren\u2019t in good form and are on a run of one win in their last nine league matches, and three wins in 13 in all competitions.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear whether Reece James and Cole Palmer will return having missed the last two games, whilst it remains to be seen if Liam Delap and Jamie Gittens have recovered from illness.<\/p>\n
Brentford have been a surprise package and have a good record against Chelsea, with the fixture earlier in the season finishing 2-2.<\/p>\n
Igor Thiago is in fine form, and Chelsea face a tough task stopping the Brazilian, who\u2019s scored 16 league goals this season, and Merson has given his prediction.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a very interesting game. Brentford are flying. I didn\u2019t see them getting relegated from the very beginning. Igor Thiago has been the big revelation of the season,\u201d he told Sportskeeda.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the first two games of Liam Rosenior\u2019s reign at Chelsea. As per my understanding, what he\u2019s trying to do is play through the middle. It worked against Charlton, who are nowhere near the same level. But they can\u2019t keep playing that way!<\/p>\n
\u201cChelsea fans will turn up expecting to win against Brentford on Saturday. But this is a hard game. Brentford are playing with unbelievable confidence, while Chelsea are a work-in-progress. I think the hosts will edge it.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaul Merson\u2019s prediction: Chelsea 2-1 Brentford.\u201d
\nBlues face favourable run of fixtures<\/p>\n
The Blues really need to get a run of results together if they are to have any chance of qualifying for the Champions League.<\/p>\n
Whilst there are no easy games, Rosenior does face a reasonable run in his next few league matches, which needs to be taken advantage of.<\/p>\n
After Brentford on Saturday Chelsea\u2019s next four league games are against Crystal Palace, Wolves, Leeds and Burnley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea host Brentford at Stamford Bridge in a huge game on Saturday afternoon and Paul Merson has given his prediction. The match will be Liam Rosenior\u2019s first Premier League game in charge of the Blues, and he\u2019s won one and lost one of his first two games. Chelsea desperately need the three points as they …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/images-22.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11853,"href":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11851\/revisions\/11853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evutisblog.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}