Paul Merson has explained why Chelsea must ditch Frank Lampard immediately and appoint a permanent manager immediately.

“The players, no disrespect, weren’t fussed about the league games. They’re not getting in the Champions League, they’re not really getting in Europe. It was on the two Real Madrid games, they had five clear-cut chances over the two ties and never scored a goal,” Merson told Sky Sports.

“It’s their Achilles’ heal, they’ve spent £600million and haven’t bought a centre-forward. They have not got a goalscorer. Everybody they buy can play all the way along the front line, that’s no good.

“It don’t matter who the manager is. They need to get the manager in now. They need to sort this out now. This is no disrespect to Frank, but they have got to go ‘right who do we want, who do we get’.

“You go in now, there’s four, five, six games to go, you can tinker, who’s about to be their next season, who’s not. He knows he’s only there for the short time anyway. Frank knows he was their for a short time, he was there for the Champions League games.”

Merson added: “What you read from Thiago Silva today where they had to knock the dressing room through. You can’t have 30 players there, even if you have 11v11, you’ve got eight players sitting out, it’s impossible.

“We’re talking about international footballers. They’ve got to get a manager in because he’ll come in in May, the players will all go on holiday, they’ll come back and he’ll go ‘right who do I need’.

“If I wanna buy Pulisic and ring up and ask how much for him, they’ll go £50m, I’ll go £30m because they have to rid of him. You can’t keep all of these players, it’s impossible. Chelsea are in a bit of a problem at the moment. They need to get it sorted very quickly.

“They’ve been nowhere in the league in the last six years, they’ve been a cup team. They need to change it. They need to get a manager in because their next window is massive. They need to get a centre-forward in, clear out what they need to clear out.”