Sterling’s brace helps Mauricio get first win with Chelsea following 3-0 thrashing of Luton Town
London [UK], August 26 (ANI): A brace by Raheem Sterling helped Mauricio Pochettino clinch his first victory as Chelsea boss as Luton Town was defeated 3-0 in an away outing at Stamford Bridge on Friday.
After a draw and loss started his Premier League campaign on a forgettable note, Mauricio secured his first competitive win of the club since his appointment and Sterling continued his fine form at the start of the season. Chelsea was also struggling with the problem of integrating a flux of summer recruits. A defeat to Luton, who last won in the league at Stamford Bridge in 1986 and are yet to score a point in their debut Premier League season would have added more to the negative noise surrounding Mauricio’s tenure, with the club having splurged over 350 million pounds on new signings this summer.
Mauricio had warned The Blues that Luton would get the better of them if they failed to match the hunger and desire to win of Rob Edwards’ newly-promoted side.
Chelsea opened the scoring in the 17th minute, with Sterling picking up the ball from the right-hand side before driving through the Luton defence and delivering a superb finish. His goal was his third attempt made in the first 20 minutes or so,
Chelsea went into the second half with a slender 1-0 lead. They could have doubled their lead in the early stage of the second half as Ben Chilwell found a hole in Luton’s defence and tried to pass to Sterling, but could not make much of this opportunity.
The hosts doubled their lead with Sterling in action again, in the 68th minute. He got on the end of a perfect cross from Malo Gusto and stroked the ball right into the nets.
In the 75th minute, Nicolas Jackson added more to Luton’s miseries, lurking at the back post and getting on the end of Sterling’s cross and tapping in his first goal for the club.
Following the match, Chelsea boss Mauricio said as quoted by Sky Sports, “I am really pleased. It was a solid performance. I am happy because the first victory is always very important, to provide the team with the confidence and trust in the way we are doing things.”
On Sterling’s performance, he said: “He played with freedom on the pitch, we know what he is capable of. On the wing, inside, between the lines, in the pocket, he has the quality to play many places and the he has the quality to run and finish.”
“We are pleased for him, he needs to keep going and contribute more goals and assists to help the team win,” he concluded.
On the other hand, Luton boss Rob Edwards lauded his players for being brave.
“I do not like losing, none of us do. But there are ways to lose. When our fans reacted like that, applauding us off, we know we had done something right. We were up against it, against a really good team today. I thought we were really brave, I am proud of the players,” he said.
“I have seen improvement from the game against Brighton. We were aggressive when we could be and tried to go for them. In the end, both ends of the pitch let us down slightly. They were ruthless in the key moments and we were not. There are areas to work on.”
“Second half I thought we started as the better team. We had to make something happen but we were not able to. It was going to go one way or another, we needed to score but they did.”
“The players have worked so hard, I am not going to blame anyone. We have to make sure we can do the basics for 100 minutes. Football is difficult, especially at this level,” he concluded.
With this win, Chelsea is in the eighth spot with a win, loss and a draw, which translates to four points. Luton is at the bottom place, with two losses in their two games.
Chelsea’s next PL game will be against Nottingham Forest at home on September 2, while Luton will play West Ham on September 1.
