CHELSEA   V   ARSENAL

Saturday 22nd October 1999

3pm

DATE

KICK OFF

AT

Stamford Bridge

FA Carling Premiership

FIXTURE

ATTENDENCE

MAN OF THE MATCH

SCORE

34,958

Albert Ferrer

2-3

SCORERS

CHELSEA

Flo 38, Petrescu 52,

ARSENAL

Kanu 75, 83, 90

Alan Wilkie

REFEREE

REFS PERFORMANCE

4/10

ASISSTANT REFEREES

J.Ross
R.Bone

TEAMS

CHELSEA

Ed De Goey,  Dan Petrescu, Celestine Babayaro, Frank Leboeuf, Marcel Desailly, Didier Deschamps, Chris Sutton, Dennis Wise,  Graeme Le Saux,  Albert Ferrer, Tore Andre Flo.

Poyet 53 (Le Saux) Zola 70 (Flo)

SUBSTITUTES

BOOKED

Le Saux, Wise, Deschamps, Sutton

ARSENAL

Seaman, Dixon, Keown, Adams, Llungberg, Suker, Overmars, Parlour, Silvinho, Petit, Kanu

SUBSTITUTES

Henry 62 (Llungberg) Vivas 64 (Petit) Upson 90(Overmars)

BOOKED

Dixon, Suker, Petit, Vivas

MATCH REPORT

Quite how a team can be 2-0 up and coasting in a game, and lose 3-2 in a 15 minute spell astounds me, with memories of Leicester at home flooding back to me.

For the remaining part of the match we completely dominated the match, our movement superb and Flo giving Adams and Keown a torrid time.

Arsenal without Bergkamp looked short upfront for most of the game.

Both of our goals came from headers from crosses the 2nd being of note because it was a rare headed goal by Super Dan.

The Referee was yet again a disgrace, how he never saw the elbows and shirt pulling going on all afternoon I will never know.

Their goals came in farcical proportions with Kanu scoring a hatrick out of nothing when Arsenal had looked dead and buried.

I honestly believe that Vialli had made a tactical error in taking off Flo and not bringing on  defender, instead prefering Zola, in other words, subbing like for like.

This error was siezed on by Wenger who quickly brought on Henry to add some pace to the attack and it quickly paid off .

A loose ball found its way in the centre of the box, the ball appearing to hold up in the puddle of water which had built up in the goalmouth from the heavy rain which was coming down in buckets.

Kanu managed to fire home  with Chelsea's defence all over the place.

We just could believe how we could give them a lifeline like that, worse was to follow though when we started to push up too much from the back, and again Kanu found away through are normal solid back four amd scored a goal similar the first.

We all held are heads in our hands, "Where the fuck was our defence" we shouted and at that stage I would of settled for a draw.

The last and killer goal was a farce, Ed de Goey raced out to Kanu wide on the left, when are defence were nowhere to be seen, Kanu jinked around him and fired a shot into the net from a unbelievable acute angle on 90 minutes.

That put paid to the contest, we had lost again for the 2nd week running and our Premiership title hopes looking extremely bleak.

With Man United losing to Spurs, we never had a better chance of putting ourselfs in a more comfortable position and

"WE BLOODY BLEW"


Viva Vialli