Chelsea’s biggest win against tonight’s opponents Manchester United was made even more special by the fact they were European champions at the time. In fact the Red Devils had won the Treble the season before.
Chelsea had finished our previous Premiership campaign in third and were in the midst of first Champions League campaign when Man United arrived at Stamford Bridge on 3 October 1999.Five days earlier, a young midfielder called Jody Morris had started a Champions League game for the first time and he then capped a very good week by scoring the fifth goal in our 5-0 stuffing of Alex Ferguson’s Man U side.It is a game Morris recalls in the video that can be watched above, one of a series of videos of past Blues such as Petr Cech, Ashley Cole and Tore Andre Flo talking about their best moments against the Old Trafford outfit. The full selection is available now in The 5th StandOn Morris’s big day against Man United, Chelsea made the perfect start when Gustavo Poyet capitalised on a goalkeeping error by heading home an Albert Ferrer cross after just 28 seconds.
It was a strangely subdued performance by United and we took full advantage after 16 minutes when Chris Sutton scored his only league goal for the club.Moments later, any chance Man United had of getting back appeared to disappear when Nicky Butt was sent off. Inevitably, Dennis Wise was involved. Butt took exception to a foul by Wise and kicked out at the Chelsea man to receive a red card.The victory became a rout within the space of four minutes early in the second half. Another goalkeeping error resulted in our third goal, Massimo Taibi spilling a Frank Leboeuf shot for Poyet to score his second of the match. Then a precise Gianfranco Zola shot was turned into his own net by Henning Berg under pressure from Sutton.Finally with eight minutes left, the three substitutes combined to create a fifth, Tore Andre Flo and Graeme Le Saux exchanging passes to set up Morris for a goal followed by an unusual celebration. View the video for Jody’s explanation of that!
Visit The 5th Stand for memories from Flo, Cole and Cech