Joe Cole tips Premier League club as ‘dark horse’ to win Champions League | Football

Joe Cole believes one Premier League team should be considered the dark horses to win this season’s Champions League.

For the first time, six English clubs – Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea, Newcastle, and Tottenham – will compete in Europe’s premier club competition.

Last year, Arsenal progressed the furthest out of the Premier League clubs, with Mikel Arteta’s side ultimately bowing out in the semi-finals to eventual champions, Paris Saint-Germain.

The Gunners, along with Liverpool and City, return to the competition this season, each with their respective new-look squads after a summer of heavy spending.

And in the eight-match league phase, they will also be joined this time around by Chelsea, Tottenham and Newcastle to complete a stellar representation for English sides.

Chelsea punched their ticket into the competition with a top-four finish and further demonstrated their European pedigree by triumphing in the Conference League.

And Cole believes that his former side, two-time winners of the Champions League, could well cause an upset back in the competition for the first time since 2023.

‘I’d put them in a bracket just at the top of the dark horses and bottom of the teams who you might expect to be in the latter stages of the competition,’ Cole told TNT Sports when asked to rate Chelsea’s chances in this season’s competition.

However, the Englishman fears that Chelsea’s reliance on Robert Sanchez in goal and the lengthy injury suffered by Levi Colwill could well prove their undoing against the best sides in Europe.

‘It all depends, I think, on the performance of the goalkeeper Sanchez,’ Cole added.

‘That was the one area of the pitch, if you asked Chelsea fans where they needed to improve, that they would have gone for.

‘Levi at the back end of last season was brilliant. Centre halves mature later, and he looked like he had this surge, and something clicked with him.

‘He scored at the City Ground to secure Champions League football and was then brilliant at the Club World Cup.

‘No he’s out, you’re looking around at the other options. (Wesley) Fofana is a top player, but you can’t rely on him because of injuries, so they do need to improve that area of the pitch.’

Chelsea begin the competition with a difficult trip to Germany to take on Bayern Munich, but must also face off against the reigning Italian and Spanish champions, Napoli and Barcelona, later on in the league phase.

Asked about his side’s draw, Maresca said: ‘We are happy to be in the draw. We are happy, very happy, because we brought this club where this club has to be: the Champions League.

‘The draw is always a draw, it’s nice to be there, and when we start the Champions League we will start thinking about that.’

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