Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino says they'll take the FA Cup seriously.

Chelsea kickoff their campaign against Preston in the Third Round.

Pochettino said: "It's a good opportunity. Different competitions allowed us to provide to the team and different players to use to see how they behave and how they perform. I think it is an important competition for us, the FA Cup tomorrow is really important like it will be for the semi-final against Middlesbrough and the Premier League game against Fulham.

"It is so important in the way we are building this team and the possibility to provide the team and the players with experience competing at a high level at Stamford Bridge. It's an important game for us. It's a process. We are happy with the timing. We cannot be satisfied because we are Chelsea and expectation is to win. If we analyse the process, it is a process that takes time and the evolution is in the moment that we need to be. For all of the circumstances, I think we are in the situation that we need to be.

"The Carabao Cup and FA Cup are competitions we need to try to go further and arrive. Before we need to go step by step. The first step is tomorrow. it is a really important competition for us because we are not in European competition and in the Premier League we need to improve a lot if we want to play in Europe next season. Through the FA Cup or Carabao Cup we can achieve to play next season in Europe. It's important because from the start we had three competitions and we are still in three competitions."