Mauricio Pochettino’s reign at Chelsea has gotten off to a less-than-ideal start, with the team still without a win through the first two matches of the new Premier League season. Will it be the third time’s a charm for the Blues Friday versus Luton Town?
Bookmaker William Hill offers odds at 2.10 for Chelsea to be involved in another game where both teams score. The odds are at 1.67 for both teams not to score at Stamford Bridge on Friday night.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: August 24th, 6:30 P.M. (EST)
Pochettino had a fine debut in charge of Chelsea on the opening weekend when the Blues played out an entertaining 1-1 draw with Liverpool, but last Sunday’s 3-1 defeat to West Ham United will have been a huge disappointment for the team. The result leaves Chelsea sitting on only one win through its last 14 Premier League outings.
Chelsea was left ruing its poor finishing versus the Hammers as Pochettino’s men lost despite having a 2.34 to 1.96 advantage in expected goals. The west Londoners are now in danger of starting a Premier League campaign without a win through the first three games for the first time since the 1998-99 campaign.
The Blues fans will be desperate to see new star forward Nicolas Jackson hit form Friday night. The 22-year-old has looked very promising in his first couple of games in England, but getting that first goal out of the way is always important for any striker. He showed plenty of class last season in La Liga, netting nine times in his final eight outings for Villarreal.
Luton returns to action after sitting out last week’s action because renovations on the club’s home stadium weren’t finished on time. The team will try to bounce back from an opening day 4-1 defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion.
The Hatters had a very tough time against Brighton, but they have now had two weeks to work out what went wrong, and manager Rob Edwards will expect to see a good response to the heavy defeat on Friday.
This is certainly a tough fixture for the Premier League new boys, but Chelsea’s play continues to leave plenty of question marks. The team hasn’t even kept a clean sheet for 11 consecutive league matches, conceding first in each of the last six. Pochettino really needs to sort things out at the back if he wants to see a big improvement from the side under his watch.
