Chapter 49: Away to Chelsea

The 2009 New Year's bell rings when Luton Town travels to Chelsea in the third round of the FA Cup on 3 January.

Early in the morning, Luton's orange buses slowly pulled out of the training base, winding through the narrow streets of Luton and onto the M1 motorway.

This is the only motorway through Luton, which connects the town of Luton to Hertfordshire, and the M1 exit southwest leads to Greater London.

The scenery outside the car window flew quickly behind the window.

The players sat in their seats, some with their eyes closed, some listening to music with huge headphones.

At this time, Gao Bo would not choose to disturb the players, he did not want to take off his seat belt in a speeding car.

"It's Hertfordshire over there." As the bus pulled out of an exit, John Aston pointed in the other direction.

Gao Bo looked at John Aston with a somewhat melancholy expression, and of course he knew what John was melancholy.

England's teams have their rivals, and Luton Town is no exception.

Luton's nemesis is Watford, a noisy neighbour in Hertfordshire. It's hard to get to the bottom of how the feud came from, but there's no denying that the team Luton fans hate the most has to be Watford.

The two sides are each other's number one rivals, and the derby between them is also known as the "M1 derby". Because the M1 road in the UK connects Hertfordshire, where Watford is located, with Luton.

Of course, in addition to Watford, Milton Keynes in the same area is also a sworn enemy of Luton.

However, Luton's arch-rivals Watford are now playing in the Championship, while Milton Keynes Dons are still in the First Division, and Luton in the Second Division look to be falling behind in the competition with their sworn rivals.

"John, we're not going to stay in the second division for long." Gao Bo turned his head to look at his players, full of confidence: "The Super League is the stage for these boys!" ”

John is not as confident as Gao Bo, this Luton team is indeed very potential, especially now Luton's core players, Vardy, Kante and others The average age is around 20 years old, give them a few years, may not be able to rush to the Premier League. But John knew that times were different now. Chelsea have become a giant team because of Abou's investment, and now Manchester City also has the support of big money owners, and the gold dollar has swept the professional football world in an all-round way.

How long will Luton be able to keep them?

A season?

Or two seasons?

John didn't know, but he did know that when a team was waving a cheque, a small team like Luton couldn't resist the temptation.

For example, if a team spends five million on Vardy?

Although John knows Vardy is definitely worth the price, can Luton say no? Their budget for a season is only a million.

But if Gao Bo knew what John was thinking, he would have scoffed. In the previous life, Vardy sold 50 million is already considered a blood loss, although Vardy is still young in this life, and the inflation in the transfer market is not so strong, but if there is a card bonus, plus the current Vardy is so young, after another season or two, there is no more than 20 million, and there is no need to talk about it!

"Gao, you can take Luton to the Premier League, can you?"

John is well aware that neither Vardy nor N'Golo Kante is worth as much as the coach in front of him. Gao Bo is the most important factor in the rise of this Luton team.

Gobo understood what John was thinking, he thought for a moment and gave an ambiguous answer: "I will take the team all the way forward." ”

'What's going on at Chelsea lately?' Gao Bo turned to ask his data analyst, Lin Sen.

"You've Chelsea, boss!" Lin Sen shook his head, he didn't understand why Gao Bo had to say so many words to anger his opponent before playing against Chelsea, in the face of a strong opponent, shouldn't he be low-key, it's better to be able to pretend to be a pig and eat a tiger...

'Scolari says there are no problems in the dressing room at the moment and Chelsea will be in the best form for this game to get the new year off to a good start...'

'Deco hit back directly at the media, saying that you are not doing enough and that provoking Chelsea will cost Luton....

"Wait... Did Deco say that? Gao Bo leaned forward and asked.

"It's what he said."

It's done!!

Gao Bo was overjoyed, he did so much, didn't he just want Scolari to arrange Deco to start in this game. Scolari has put Deco at the heart and has largely abandoned Chelsea's counter-attacking tradition, as long as Scolari continues to use his style, so the game will be easy for Luton.

Strangled Deco!!

With N'Golo Kante on the pitch, it will definitely suffocate Deco.

......

The morning was still sunny, and by the time the bus pulled into West London, the sky was already overcast, with occasional light rain.

"What a damn weather forecast!!" Gao Bo grinned and cursed, talking about MMP, but in fact, he hoped that the rain could be heavier, preferably a violent storm!

In any case, it is difficult to detach this game from the fact that Luton's squad has no advantage over Chelsea, and the opponent is in a crushing posture in terms of strength.

And if it is a stormy weather, this will cause some accidents on the pitch and narrow the gap between the two sides.

The game was played at five o'clock in the afternoon, and despite being an FA Cup game against a side from the second division, there was already a blue line-up of fans outside Stamford Bridge at three or four o'clock in the afternoon.

England has a great fan atmosphere, and with the FA Cup being played on weekends, there are absolutely no empty stadiums.

Luton arrived at a hotel near the Stamford Bridge stadium at around 9am, and after the players had lunch in the hotel in the morning, they took a two-hour lunch break in the afternoon, and at 3.30pm, Luton's bus was already driving into the Stamford Bridge car park.

At this time, all the players of Luton Town did not have the calmness they had when they came, and they looked out the car window in amazement at the huge pitch. For most of the current Luton squad to play against a Premier League-level team, this is the first time in their lives, not to mention that this is a new big club in the Premier League.

"That's a lot of people..."

"It's Chelsea... They are the richest team .... But who is richer than Abu Dhabi Consortium? ”

"Of course the Arabs have money..."

"Ahhhh

"Stop dreaming, Charlie....."

There was a lot of talk among the players.

At this time, the bus stopped in the specially provided parking lot of the stadium.

It's a place where regular fans can't come.

Gao Bo was the first to get out of the car and not many news media reporters came to photograph Luton, most of them went to wait for the Chelsea bus.

However, not far away, next to the cordon, Gao Bo saw Luton fans wearing orange jerseys.

Gao Bo stretched out his hand and waved at the fans, and the Luton fans instantly cheered.