Mauricio Pochettino has warned his Chelsea players that Luton will get the better of them at Stamford Bridge on Friday night if they fail to match the desire to win of Rob Edwards’ newly promoted side.
The manager recalled one of his early games in charge of Espanyol when he took his team to the Nou Camp and staged a famous victory against Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona en route to masterminding the team’s La Liga survival.
That 2-1 win in February 2009, earned thanks to two goals from midfielder Ivan de la Pena as Espanyol ended a 27-year wait for a victory at the home of their city rivals, announced Pochettino’s arrival as a coach and was a springboard for dragging his new team out of the relegation zone to safety.
It went down as one of the shocks of the LaLiga season in Spain, particularly as Barcelona were en route to winning a domestic and European treble in what was Guardiola’s first season in charge.
Pochettino prepares his side to welcome Luton in rather less swashbuckling form, still seeking a first win under his tenure following a draw and a defeat in his first two games in charge and grappling with the problem of integrating a flux of summer recruits.
Defeat to the Hatters, who last won in the league at Stamford Bridge in 1986 and are yet to pick up a point in their debut Premier League season, would add to the noise surrounding Pochettino’s Chelsea rebuild, with the club having spent more than £350million on nine new signings so far this summer.
In contrast, Luton have paid out around £20m on transfers during the last 18 months, but the Chelsea manager was quick to remind his players of football’s unique propensity for springing upsets.
“It’s the beauty of football. In the pre-season I was talking with (Brighton manager) Roberto De Zerbi, he’s a good friend. I said ‘look, I was at Southampton and at Espanyol. Sometimes you face Real Madrid and you cannot complain, because I know how you feel when you face this type of team’.
“I was on one side, now I am on another. I understand. Sometimes people will say ‘you need to win 4-0 or 5-0’ before the start of the game. But it’s the beauty of football. At Espanyol we beat the dream team of Barcelona with Lionel Messi and Xavi and (Andres) Iniesta. It is similar (to) Luton and Chelsea. It’s the beauty of football.
“I was telling the players today in the meeting. We need to match the same will as the players of Luton. If we match all this, then we presume that we have better quality for us to win. But if not the game can be crazy. Maybe we can win or we can lose. That is football. It happens more here in the Premier League.
“It was the first time the bottom team had beaten the top team. It had never happened in the past. It was amazing, Espanyol in the Camp Nou. It was a little but lucky, we had some help also.
“There’s nothing to lose (for Luton). You go there, we were Espanyol and we said we don’t care about making a mistake. We need to be brave. (But) I don’t want to give the Luton coach all the strategies.
“It can only happen in football. You can see basketball, NFL, you see the quality of the players and you say (one team) it’s impossible, you cannot do it. In football you can shoot 30 times and not score, and they can shoot only once and score. In other sports, it’s impossible.
“Football is about belief, being together and (showing) fight, and then the quality that you have, if you match this, it’s about the players. If you don’t match this, the game is going to be over.”
It was near the end of the transfer window last season that former manager Thomas Tuchel talked of there being “a curse” on Chelsea’s number nine shirt, such has been the club’s lack of success with strikers in recent seasons.
Pochettino acknowledged that the door may not be fully closed on Romelu Lukaku’s future at Stamford Bridge if a deal cannot be reached to sell him before the end of the window, although the player is eager to leave and unlikely to prove the answer to the team’s goalscoring woes unless his relationship with the club improves.
The manager said the club remain in the market for another attacking option but only if a player of the hight profile becomes available.
Summer signing Christopher Nkunku is out until December and the number nine shirt is currently not assigned.
“I didn’t hear about the curse,” said Pochettino. “We need to do something to try to change the energy. I’ll ask the kitman to bring all the number nine shirts and we’ll do some cleaning, energetic thing.
“If we bring a new striker I’ll be sure he gets the number nine to try and change the feeling that this number is not welcome.”
Barcelona must 'work hard' to achieve Champions League glory, says Flick
Hansi Flick tempered expectations of Barcelona's chances of silverware in his first season in charge ahead of facing Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League.
Flick has led Barca to 13 wins from 15 games in all competitions, scoring 50 goals in those games while conceding just 14 times.
Some standout matches have seen Barca thrash Clasico rivals Real Madrid 4-0 while also brushing aside Bayern Munich 4-1 in the Champions League in their last match in the competition.
While Flick understood the fans' excitement after those results, he urged his side to keep their feet on the ground with a long season still in front of them.
"We have to work hard. There are many teams who dream of the same thing, of winning (the Champions League)," Flick said.
"For the moment, we're going to focus on working hard and grinding out, so then we'll see what happens. We have to focus on our goal which is to keep improving.
"A team's form fluctuates a lot over a long season. The important thing is to focus on winning the next match. Sure, after the match against Bayern everything changed.
"But we are just starting. The important thing is how we finish the season. We could say that our goal is to be in the top eight."
Flick, however, insisted he was not surprised by his side's impressive start to the campaign despite enduring a trophyless season last term.
Barca are nine points clear at the top of LaLiga and 11th in the Champions League table ahead of facing Red Star, who are without a win from their three games so far.
"Before we came here we analysed the whole team, every player. We realised that there was very good quality overall," Flick said.
"Another thing to point out is that we wanted to improve how we defend and did small changes in the way we play. The players liked it and they are happy working on it.
"The players play a big role, they are helping us a lot.
"The start was already good on the pre-season in North American and the players are very happy, although there are still many things to improve."
And Barca will be confident of keeping their fine form going against a side that has lost 81% of their matches in the Champions League (P21 W2 D2 L17).
This is the first European meeting between the two sides since October 1996 in the Cup Winners’ Cup, a 1-1 draw with Giovanni cancelling out a Zoran Jovicic's opener for the Serbians.
PSV 4-0 Girona: Dutch side get first win of Champions League
PSV Eindhoven won their first match in the Champions League this season as they thrashed Girona 4-0 at the Philips Stadion on Tuesday.
Ryan Flamingo got the scoring under way after 16 minutes as he turned Malik Tillman's long throw home, despite replays showing that it should have been disallowed as Tillman's foot was over the byline before releasing the ball.
Tillman got himself on the scoresheet 17 minutes later with a fine finish after he arribed into the box unopposed.
Things went from bad to worth for Girona after half-time, with Arnau Martinez receiving a red card 10 minutes into the second half for a second bookable offence.
From then, it was all one-way traffic and PSV might feel aggrieved not to have won by a bigger margin given their glut of second-half chances.
Ismael Saibari was next to put the ball in the back of the net, although his effort was ruled out for a foul in the build-up following a VAR review.
Johan Bakayoko did get PSV's third with seven minutes to go, before a Ladislav Krejci own goal wrapped up the rout in the 88th minute. The result leaves Girona 26th in the table on three points, while PSV are 19th with five points.
Odegaard returns to full Arsenal training ahead of Inter tie
Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard has returned to full training after spending two months out of action with an ankle injury.
Odegaard has missed 12 matches for the Gunners in all competitions after damaging his ankle ligaments against Austria while on international duty with Norway in September.
The 25-year-old midfielder trained with Arsenal ahead of their trip to the San Siro to face Inter in the Champions League on Wednesday.
Mikel Arteta's side have, however, struggled in Odegaard's absence recently, failing to win any of their last three games in the Premier League.
In the seven games that Odegaard has missed in the top-flight, Arsenal's win percentage dropped from 66.7% to 42.9% after going unbeaten in their first three games.
The Gunners have also averaged 1.6 points per game without Odegaard, compared to 2.3 points won with the Norwegian in their ranks.
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