We look ahead to this Friday night fixture at Stamford Bridge with our Chelsea vs Luton Town prediction and preview. Can the newly promoted team inflict more pain on the five-time Premier League champions?
Chelsea vs Luton Town: The Quick Hits
- A Chelsea victory is the most likely result in this Premier League meeting, with the Opta supercomputer giving them a 61% chance of winning against Luton Town.
- Chelsea have conceded the opening goal in their last six Premier League games – if they concede first in this match, it’ll be a new club record in the competition.
- Luton last won a league game at Stamford Bridge in September 1986 – none of their current playing squad were born when they won that match.
Match Preview
Chelsea are still looking for their first win under new manager Mauricio Pochettino, but will be confident of doing so with this home game against promoted side Luton Town. The Argentinian coach has won 85% of his previous Premier League games in charge against promoted sides (W34 D4 L2) – that’s the joint-best win rate of any manager with 10+ such games.
Chelsea need a victory to avoid beginning a Premier League campaign without winning any of their first three games for the first time since 1998-99 (D2 L1). Not falling behind would be a big help. They’ve gone one-nil down in each of their last six Premier League matches – never have they suffered this feat in seven consecutive games in the competition.
Chelsea have bought big this summer, spending over £300 million on transfers for players that will be available for Friday’s game such as £100m-man Moisés Caicedo, Roméo Lavia, Robert Sánchez, Axel Disasi, Nicolas Jackson and Lesley Ugochukwu. Another player that arrived this summer – Christopher Nkunku – is expected to be missing from their lineup for the next four months with injury, however. Nkunku is joined on the sidelines by Reece James, Carney Chukwuemeka, Trevoh Chalobah, Benoit Badiashile and long-term absentee Wesley Fofana.
Raheem Sterling impressed in last weekend’s defeat against West Ham, even breaking the Premier League record for most penalties won by a single player. He’s got a great record against promoted sides in the EPL, with 15 goal involvements in 15 appearances against such sides (11 goals, four assists), including five in five games for Chelsea last term (three goals, two assists).
Because of necessary work being carried out on their Kenilworth Road stadium, Luton strangely begin life as a Premier League club with two successive away games. No Premier League side have started with two away games in a season since Blackpool in 2010-11.
Luton are still without a quartet of their promotion-winning side from last season, with Reece Burke, Gabriel Osho, Dan Potts and Jordan Clarke ruled out with injury. Carlton Morris is expected to lead the attack alongside Elijah Adebayo. Morris scored Luton’s goal in the 4-1 opening weekend defeat to Brighton, to add to his 20 goals in the Championship last season which saw him end the 2022-23 campaign as their top scorer.
Chelsea vs Luton Town Head-to-Head
These two clubs have never met in the Premier League before, with the last league meeting between Chelsea and Luton Town coming back in December 1991 in the old Division One. Luton enjoyed a 2-0 win at Kenilworth Road on that occasion, thanks to goals from Richard Harvey and a John Dreyer penalty. The last league meeting between Luton and Chelsea at Stamford Bridge came in August 1991, with the Blues winning 4-1.
Chelsea and Luton have met three times in the FA Cup since then, with the London side winning all three encounters. They defeated Luton 2-0 at Wembley in the 1993-94 FA Cup semi-final, before a 3-1 win at Stamford Bridge in January 2021 and a 3-2 win away in Luton in March 2022.
Luton last defeated Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on 6 September 1986 (3-1) – 13,502 days prior to this meeting in the Premier League on Friday night. The only player in either Luton or Chelsea’s Premier League squad that was alive when this occurred was Thiago Silva (he was two years old at the time).
Recent Form
Luton will play just their second ever Premier League match in this fixture, as their Matchday 2 game against Burnley was postponed due to ongoing works at their Kenilworth Road stadium. Their opening game ended in a 4-1 defeat to Brighton and Hove Albion.
That defeat was their 27th successive top-flight away game without a win – their last away victory in the top tier of English league football came in March 1991 at Aston Villa.
Luton were the second-best away side in the Championship on their way to promotion last season though, winning 41 points overall – this tally was behind only champions Burnley (47) and one more than fellow promoted side Sheffield United (40).
Since Rob Edwards’ first game in charge of the Hatters on 10 December 2022, Luton have averaged 1.86 points per game – that’s the 10th best average in the top four tiers of English league football in that time and the only current Premier League teams above them are Man City (2.42), Burnley (2.31), Arsenal (2.04), Man Utd (2.00), Sheff Utd (1.96) and Liverpool (1.88).
Mauricio Pochettino has started life as Chelsea manager with a 1-1 draw at home with Liverpool on the opening weekend, followed by a disappointing London derby loss at West Ham United on Matchday 2. That 3-1 defeat saw Carney Chukwuemeka score their only goal, before Enzo Fernández missed a first-half penalty at 1-1 following a foul on Raheem Sterling in the box.
Chelsea have won just one of their last 14 Premier League games (D5 L8) and are winless in their last eight at home (D5 L3), drawing each of the last three. That solitary victory came with a 3-1 win at Bournemouth in May.
They last went longer without a league victory at Stamford Bridge between November 1994 and April 1995 (a run of 12), while they last drew four consecutive league games on home soil in February 2016 under Guus Hiddink.
Their current run of 11 games without a clean sheet is the longest of any of the 20 teams playing in the Premier League this season, last stopping an opponent from scoring on 4 April in a 0-0 draw with Liverpool.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Chelsea vs Luton Town Prediction
Despite their disastrous 2022-23 campaign, Chelsea still have one of the strongest squads in the Premier League. Therefore, it’ll come as little surprise that they are heavy favourites to win this meeting with Luton.
The Opta supercomputer believes the most likely result in this match will be a Chelsea home win (61%), with Luton given a 15.9% chance of winning their first-ever game in the Premier League. The draw is a 23.1% chance, and you feel that Luton would be happy with taking at least a point from their travels to Stamford Bridge.
Overall, Luton are the second favourites for relegation from the Premier League in 2023-24 (61.6%) behind only Sheffield United (62.2%). Rob Edwards’ side have a 26.1% chance of finishing bottom of the league standings at the end of the season. Chelsea’s most likely finish, as it stands, is ninth place – the Opta supercomputer had them finishing in that position in 12.9% of simulations.
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