Chelsea get tough draw in the FA Cup | What does this mean for Mauricio Pochettino?

Chelsea will host Aston Villa in FA Cup fourth-round

Mauricio Pochettino and Chelsea eased through the FA Cup third round with a 4-0 win over Preston Town and have booked their place in the fourth round, where they will face Aston Villa.

Goals from Armando Broja, Thiago Silva, Raheem Sterling, and Enzo Fernandez rallied Chelsea to a comfortable win. Now they face a challenging Premier League side who are second in the league.

Under Unai Emery, the villains have come a long way considerably, and the team has made life difficult for their rivals in the course of the games. The Blues now have a formidable opponent.

It will be a massive test for Pochettino, who has also done a brilliant job in his first season as Chelsea manager and led the club to the semi-final of the Carabao Cup.

But their performance is sometimes not convincing. As we witnessed in the game against Preston, the players couldn’t find a solution in the first half of the fixture before they completely changed and took the game to their heads.

If we are playing like this, then we will be duly punished against a top side, which players need to keep in mind. We will face Emery, who won against Manchester City, Arsenal, and Tottenham Hotspur.

Pochettino will need to find means to blunt Emery’s side’s threat during the game; if we can’t, they will embarrass us by running all over us.

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This will be a tough game, but we have time for that, and our key players who are injured should be back by then, so Pochettino should have a full-fledged squad to challenge Aston Villa. This game will be intense, as both managers like intense pressing and counter-attacking football.