The second round of the Carabao Cup continues on Thursday as Chelsea host Luton. The winner will book themselves a place in the third round against Leeds.
Chelsea are -800 moneyline favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook for this one, with a draw available at +700. Fancy a Luton upset? They are +1400 on the moneyline. In terms of odds to advance, Chelsea are -3000 while Luton are +1000. The game is slated to kick off at 2:30 p.m. ET.
Chelsea vs. Luton Town Prediction, Pick
This bet can be found under the “Match Parlays” tab. Chelsea got their Premier League campaign started with a 3-2 win over Fulham. Now they have a home game against League One opposition Luton Town in the second round of the EFL Cup. I expect Xabi Alonso to do some heavy rotating in this game, but the Blues will still have more than enough to win this one comfortably.
If you look at how some of the other Premier League teams have performed in this round of the competition, you can see a noticeable trend. Brentford beat Birmingham 6-1, Newcastle beat West Brom 3-2, Spurs beat Charlton 5-1 and Everton beat Preston 4-0. In all four of those games, the higher division team won and at least four or more goals were scored in the match. I expect a similar result here.
If you look at Chelsea’s results against lower league opposition in domestic cups last season you will notice a similar trend. They beat Barrow 5-0 in this tournament, Charlton 5-1 in the FA Cup, Hull City 4-0 in the FA Cup, Wrexham 4-2 in the FA Cup and Port Vale 7-0 in the FA Cup. Every time they played a lower division opponent in a domestic cup, they won with at least four goals scored in the game. Keep in mind, that same Chelsea team finished 10th in the Premier League last season.
The Blues will win this one and I expect it to be a lopsided scoreline.
