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Chelsea through to 5th round thanks to Abraham hat-trick vs Luton

London, Jan 24 (efe-epa).- Forward Tammy Abraham on Sunday became the first English player for Chelsea to score an FA Cup hat-trick in over a decade as he led the Blues to a 3-1 victory over Championship side Luton in the fourth round.

Thanks to Abraham’s treble, the first for the club by an English player in the competition since current manager Frank Lampard in 2007, Chelsea eased through to the last-16, where they will face second-tier Barnsley, who prevailed over Norwich 1-0.

It took the 23-year-old Abraham 11 minutes to break the deadlock, when he seized on a loose ball inside the area and fired it into the far corner.

On the 17-minute mark he doubled his team’s lead, rising highest to head home a cross from his countryman, defender Reece James. 

Thirty minutes into the game, Luton’s winger Jordan Clark got his side back into the game when his close-rang shot took Chelsea’s Spanish goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga by surprise as his vision was partly blocked by a defender.

But any hope Luton’s fans may have had faded in the 74th minute, when a poorly-marked Abraham scored the insurance off a low cross by his fellow forward Callum Hudson-Odoi.   

Three minutes after completing his maiden Stamford Bridge hat-trick, Abraham was replaced by Olivier Giroud.

With four minutes to go before stoppage time, Chelsea had a chance to increase their tally but for goalkeeper Simon Sluga, who saved a tame effort from the penalty spot by Timo Werner, who has only scored one goal since November.

Despite that miss, Lampard was pleased with the win.

“We got it right in pretty much every sense other than two sloppy moments, one for their goal, one to give them a chance, but other than that everything was nailed on,” he said after the game, although he was disappointed with his side’s “complacency” that allowed Luton to score and stay in the game.

“We got back from that quickly, we dominated the game, all that made it slightly nervous that we didn’t have the two-goal lead that makes it very comfortable. Once we got that back again, which we should have got a lot earlier, then the game was comfortable.” EFE-EPA

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