In truth, we could be talking about any clubs. In truth, this applies to several fixtures across the coming weekend in the Premier League. But it perhaps has most relevance to the Stamford Bridge clash on Friday night, where Chelsea are hosting Luton Town, a meeting of financial Goliaths and Davids, of monetary men and mice, of the extravagant and the efficient.
It’s a simple statement, but it holds undeniable truth: as early as it is in the 2023/24 season, given their respective objectives can these clubs afford to be wasting early opportunities to get points on the board?
Of course, for Luton the very notion of taking their first top-flight point since 1996 away to Chelsea might be considered unlikely to many. They had until this month, after all, been in the Conference Premier more recently than they had been in the former Premier League, the old First Division.
But now that they are here and even with the weight of fiscal disparity against them, the Hatters players, fans and hierarchy would of course love to remain among the elite – which means points, and lots of them. A few months into the season when teams are settled, new managers have picked their favoured 11 and when quality tends to begin to tell, a fixture such as this one would be almost certainly considered a routine three home points. But, perhaps, with none of those factors yet in place for Mauricio Pochettino, Luton could sense the opportunity of an upset, of adding even a single unexpected point to their tally to take forward into autumn.
They have their own issues of instability and newness, of course – the biggest of which means they are yet to play a home game as improvements to Kenilworth Road continue. Meanwhile, they had only signed two players for more than £1m in their history before this summer; across July and August, five more have arrived in that bracket.
Even so, the £5m-reported signing of Ryan Giles as a club record addition is roughly 40 per cent of the lowest fee Chelsea have paid for a player this summer. To put it another way, their biggest buy cost one twenty-fifth of a Moises Caicedo. So while it’s a big change for Luton, and they have to very quickly come to terms with it all, it’s still only a drop in the ocean compared to the sides they’re now going up against.
Yet perhaps that smaller scope of alterations makes it more possible for them to be prepared for what they’ll face in the best manner they can. Two weeks ago they looked ill-equipped to come close to dealing with Brighton; another game on for the Seagulls, perhaps that isn’t the worst indictment for a team anyway. Two weeks on the training ground will have been spent working on organisation, fitness, the need to embrace a siege mentality at times – and how to make the most of their own attacking armoury.
They’ll need every part in place to push for a result against Chelsea, yet again it’s worth reiterating: at this stage of a total rebuild, gaps in an opponent’s preparations must be seen as exponentially important and unlikely to be repeated later on. If Luton are to get a result of any sort against a team like Chelsea, this is – barring the most difficult of mid-season injury crises and the like – the most optimal time for it to happen.
The obvious problem with that train of thought for the newly promoted side is that the exact same applies to their opponents.
Chelsea are in a rebuild, yes. Pochettino will be given a chance to manage that process, sure. Well, presumably sure. But similarly, there are expectations at the club and a campaign without European midweek action should give them the platform to fast-forward their progress – so wasted weeks are simply not an option.
— (Action Images via Reuters)
This season will arguably see a minimum of seven teams aiming for the top four places. Anybody starting slowly will soon not just be left behind, but find it impossible to even break back into the mix – and that’s without factoring in surprise improvements from outside the biggest of clubs, or even without numbering Brighton among the Champions League-chasing collective. They probably should be, at this stage.
Pochettino will find out very quickly that the top-four race is a far more competitive, far more crowded environment now than when he left. The early weeks of the season might be time to fine-tune a new team, but before the first international break in September an entire ten per cent of the campaign will already have been played.
At the top, just as at the bottom, opportunities missed to put points on the board right now might prove even more costly than usual.
:: Get the latest odds and tips ahead of Chelsea vs Luton here
