Friday 14 April 2017 13:26, UK
Arsene Wenger will stay as Arsenal manager next season, but the club are in danger of becoming also-rans under the Frenchman if they fail to qualify for the Champions League, says Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson.
The Gunners are currently sitting sixth in the Premier League, seven points behind Manchester City in the fourth and final Champions League place, albeit with a game in hand on Pep Guardiola's side.
However, Arsenal - who face struggling Middlesbrough on Monday Night Football - still have to face the likes of Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur before the end of the season.
And if the north London club were to fail to finish in the top four for the first time since Wenger arrived in the capital, they face simply making up the numbers next season, according to the former Arsenal forward.
"If Arsenal do not get in the Champions League this season, I would call them also-rans," Merson told Sky Sports News HQ.
"They are in it, but they are not going to win it. A bit like Everton - they are never going to win the Premier League, but they are always going to be about sixth or seventh place. And that is where I see Arsenal next season, vying with Everton.
"They need to change the way they are at the moment, they have too many of the same players."
The players have taken their foot off the gas and are going through the motions
Merson does think that Wenger, whose contract at the Emirates runs out this summer, will still be in charge at the club next season though.
"If they are offering [Alexis] Sanchez £300k a week, that tells me Wenger is going to be there next season," he said about reports Arsenal had offered Alexis Sanchez a £300,000-per-week deal to stat at the Gunners next season.
Arsenal travel to the Riverside on the back of a morale-sapping 3-0 loss at relegation-threatened Crystal Palace on Monday evening, the club's fourth successive away defeat in the Premier League.
Merson believes that limp display at Selhurst Park is "as damaging as it gets. There are ways of losing football matches, everybody loses a football match, but the way they lost was as poor as it gets. That was not good enough.
"I think the players have taken their foot off the gas and are going through the motions at the minute and I can only put it down to the unrest and uncertainty with what is happening with Arsene Wenger. I can't put it down to anything else."
And with both teams in desperate need of the three points on Monday, Merson has predicted a thrilling contest in the north east.
"A draw is an absolute waste of time for both teams," he says. "I cannot see anything than a good game here. Both teams have to win this game. If they walk off the pitch with a 1-1 draw, they are both finished."
