Pundit Jamie Carragher shut down Peter Schmeichel’s bold Chelsea prediction after he put the Manchester United legend “on the spot”.
On Tuesday night, Chelsea returned to winning ways by beating Jose Mourinho’s Benfica 1-0 in the Champions League group stages, though they finished with ten men once again.
Despite this result, head coach Enzo Maresca remains under pressure following back-to-back Premier League defeats, so Saturday’s home match against Liverpool is huge for both sides.
Maresca is currently among the favourites to be the next Premier League manager sacked as the Blues have already given up a huge gap to table-toppers Liverpool.
Now, Carragher has shut down Chelsea’s Premier League title hopes during an exchange with Man Utd legend Schmeichel.
“Peter, you famously signed for Manchester United and were a big difference to them going on to win the Premier League,” Carragher said on CBS Sports.
“Do you think Chelsea can win the league with Robert Sanchez in goal?”
Following a pause for thought, Schmeichel responded: “Erm yes, and better defenders.”
To which Carragher immediately rejected this claim, saying: “No chance Peter, no chance!”
Then, former Manchester City defender Micah Richards told Carragher: “You put him on the spot there, didn’t you? He didn’t say it with conviction did he!”
Carragher recently argued that two “glaring flaws” will prevent Chelsea from winning the Premier League this season.
‘The glaring flaws last season were in goal and at centre-half. Despite 12 new arrivals over the summer, those areas remain the Achilles’ heel,” Carragher said in his column for The Telegraph.
“Chelsea were linked with AC Milan’s French keeper Mike Maignan, but the message was they were not prepared to pay more than £12m. Why not? Manchester City showed what ambitious clubs do when an obvious issue needs sorting out, signing Gianluigi Donnarumma.
“Why were Chelsea not part of the conversation for the PSG keeper? He could have been a transformative signing for them. Rather than focus on positions in need of urgent attention, Chelsea appear to be obsessed with collecting wingers.”
Former Chelsea and Liverpool star Glen Johnson, meanwhile, has revealed why Arsenal will be the “strongest rivals” to the Reds.
“I thought Arsenal were already Liverpool’s biggest rivals before they beat Newcastle on Sunday,” Johnson said.
“When it was 1-1, Gary Neville said that champions would go on to win the game. Before he said that, I thought exactly the same. At 1-1, you could still lose it but title winners would make sure they got all three points.
“With the penalty they had turned down, lesser sides might have just been happy to get a point, but they didn’t. They thought right, 10 minutes left, let’s get another, let’s get them on the ropes.
“That’s what impressed me most, and that’s what makes me think they’re the strongest rivals to Liverpool. I think last year they wouldn’t have had that winning mentality.”