Luton Town 2-3 Chelsea: Blues survive late scare to emerge victorious at Kenilworth Road

Chelsea secured consecutive Premier League victories for only the second time this season as they beat Luton Town 3-2 on Saturday.

Mauricio Pochettino’s men claimed a hard-fought 2-1 win over Crystal Palace last time out, while Rob Edwards’ side edged out Sheffield United 3-2.

Chelsea had the first effort of the game through Conor Gallagher, who called Thomas Kaminski into action early on after a lovely cut-back from Noni Madueke

The away side continued to dominate proceedings and took the lead in the 12th minute as Cole Palmer pounced upon a loose ball from Issa Kabore to find the bottom corner with aplomb.

Chelsea’s opener served as a wake-up call to Luton who started to grow into the game and pile pressure on the Chelsea goal, albeit all to no avail.

Having withstood a wave of Luton pressure, Chelsea doubled their advantage eight minutes before the interval through Madueke who located the top right corner with his weaker foot to cap off a lovely counter-attacking move.

Chelsea headed into the break with their two-goal lead still intact but Luton were by no means out of contention.

In search of more attacking impetus, Luton made two changes at half-time and kicked off the second half on the front foot.

The Hatters nearly halved the deficit after just three minutes when substitute Chidozie Ogbene saw his effort on target blocked by the Chelsea defence.

What followed was a relatively pedestrian phase of the game as neither side managed to string together any attacking momentum.

However, Chelsea grabbed a third goal just past the midway point of the second half when Palmer showed great composure in the Luton box to finish into a relatively unguarded net after being played through by Jackson.

Luton had the ball in the back of the net five minutes later as Alfie Doughty produced a lovely cross for Elijah Adebayo to head home, only for the VAR to rule it out for offside.

Elijah was in the thick of the action again shortly afterwards as the striker hit the woodwork with a header from point-blank range.

Luton finally got themselves back into the contest with Doughty turning provider again, this time for ex-Chelsea player Ross Barkley to drag his side back into the contest.

The hosts remained in the ascendancy following their goal and should have registered another five minutes from time when Djordje Petrovic produced a stunning save to deny Carlton Morris from close range.

Luton went on to grab the second goal their performance deserved in the 87th minute as Adebayo had the simple task of finishing home from close range after Doughty’s header came off the bar.

From a seemingly comfortable position, Chelsea were hanging on to their lead by a thread heading into second-half stoppage time.

The Blues just about managed to get the job done in the end and sign off 2023 on a winning note, while Luton tasted defeat for the first time in four outings.