Big Match! Chelsea vs Man United – 5 greatest match between them
Clashes involving two clubs from the Big Four define the season in the top flight, or so we’re told.
I’m not sure Liverpool supporters will concur, with the Merseysiders having a brilliant record against their other major rivals last season but losing out on the title due to some inadequate results against the likes of Hull and Stoke.
However, there can be no doubt of the importance when Chelsea take on Manchester United this weekend.
The Blues of west London are most people’s favourites to win the title this time round, and are currently setting the pace, while everybody seems to be waiting for United to fall. There’s just the chance they might not, with the sheer experience of their squad and the hunger of their extraordinary manager.
It’s jolly hard to sum up Chelsea as a club at times. I think it’s fair to say that most people would have preferred them before the club was flooded with money, and there can be no doubt that spiritually they have no place at the European top table with the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, United and Liverpool. That’s probably what has angered the Merseyside giants so much in their barren years, why they sing of Chelsea having ‘no history’.
In the 1970s they had more than a touch of glamour and some exciting sides. In the late 1990s and into this new century they actually picked up a string of pots, including a European Cup Winners Cup success. So it was hardly as if Roman Abramovich had taken on Barnet.
An 18th championship was won last season, to go with 11 FA Cups and three European Cups. Chelsea’s comparative totals of three titles (one before Abramovich), five FA Cups (none before 1970) and no European Cups put those numbers into perspective.
We can all sometimes forget that United are chasing a fourth successive league title, something which hasn’t been done before in the history of the English game.
In a way, that should lift the pressure on the club, but you know that while the good folk of Fleet Street have their knives sharpened for Rafa Benitez at the moment they would transfer their attentions to Sir Alex Ferguson and co the minute a few results went astray.
But all that is for the future, and these missives are nothing if not a blast from the past.
We’ve all travelled down thousands of roads in our time, but there is one that I always feel most at home in. I’m talking about that most comforting of thoroughfares known as dear memory lane.
1986: KERRY DIXON ON TARGET AS CHELSEA WIN AGAIN AT OLD TRAFFORD TO PILE PRESSURE ON BIG RON
There has always been something about Chelsea at Old Trafford. They have never seemed particularly intimidated by the place.
They had already enjoyed a victory there in 1986, with Kerry Dixon scoring twice in a 2-1 win that inflicted more damage on a United side that had at one stage been ten points clear in the league, but fell away badly as the season wore on.
On the pitch on this September afternoon, Chelsea did what they often used to do at Old Trafford, turning up without fear and playing some fine football.
The visitors were the better side early on and they took the lead through that man Dixon.
The Stretford End was restless as United failed to find their feet, and their mood hardly improved when Gordon Strachan missed a penalty.
Atkinson threw on the Dane Jesper Olsen as United desperately chased a point, but things were only going to get worse for the hosts.
When a second penalty was won by United, Olsen stood up to the plate but he also missed, and the Blues claimed all three points.
Only another month would pass before Big Ron got his marching orders and a certain Alex Ferguson came south from Aberdeen.
Chelsea’s win at Old Trafford was a clear bright spot in an otherwise disappointing autumn, and the Blues could only finish 14th a year after a sixth placed position.
1994: DOUBLE NO TROUBLE FOR UNITED AS CANTONA PUTS BLUES ON THE SPOT AT WEMBLEY
It was never a good idea for Chelsea to do the league double over United on reflection. Three wins in the same season is always going to be a tall order.
Gavin Peacock scored the winner in both league games that term. I remember the game at Stamford Bridge as being the last top flight fixture I went to without needing a ticket. Arriving at midday and queuing to get in – how quaint that seems now.
United had won their second successive title, and for many supporters this remains their favourite team. Ryan Giggs at his youthful best, Lee Sharpe and Andrei Kanchelskis tearing down the wings, Roy Keane and Paul Ince maruading in midfield, Mark Hughes being Mark Hughes and then a chap called Cantona. There can be no doubt that United played some thrilling football that season.
Chelsea enjoyed a miserable few years in ‘the world’s oldest cup competition’ at the hands of United after that, with a 2-1 semi-final defeat at Villa Park in 1996 and a third round 5-3 defeat at Stamford Bridge in 1998.
1999: DWIGHT YORKE HELPS UNITED INTO SEMI-FINALS OF FA CUP ON NIGHT THAT TURNS SOUR
This was one of those nights that reminded you how football used to be, with all its inherent ugliness and aggression.
United were aiming for an improbable treble in 1999 but it still looked like a distant dream on a cold March night when they travelled to London for an FA Cup quarter-final replay, following a tepid goalless draw in the original tie at Old Trafford.
Chelsea were playing some mighty fine football of their own that term, but they lacked United’s extra quality and knowhow.
2007: DIDIER DROGBA SNATCHES FA CUP FOR CHELSEA AS NEW WEMBLEY OPENS ITS DOORS
‘Aren’t the hand dryers good’? These were probably the words I heard most often as I paid my first visit to the new Wembley Stadium.
Now call me picky if you must, but after the best part of £800million spent and seven years of toil I think I’m entitled to be a little underwhelmed if hand dryers are the headline story.
Admittedly I’m an unashamed sentimentalist, but there was always an unmistakable magic about the sight of Wembley Way teeming with fans on the game’s biggest days.
2008: UNITED BREAK CHELSEA HEARTS TO WIN THEIR THEIR THIRD EUROPEAN CUP IN MOSCOW RAIN
This really is the one. The biggest match ever played between two English clubs, no less.
If I was to think of my ‘greatest sporting night’ it would take a bit of time, and I’d be sweating for days over my ‘worst sporting night’. But ‘most surreal sporting night’? This one wins it hands down.
The details of the match are well known to millions, so to sum up: United went 1-0 ahead, and then should have scored one or maybe two more goals.
Chelsea scored a slightly fortunate equaliser, but went on to completely dominate the second half, forcing United to hold on for dear life. Didier Drogba smashed a shot against a post.
The full time whistle came as a blessing for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side, and extra time was an altogether more even affair, although the London club still edged it in terms of possession, with Frank Lampard seeing an effort on goal bounce back off the underside of a crossbar.
Memories flashed back to the night in 1999 when two Bayern Munich efforts also struck the woodwork against United.
Then came that damned lottery of a shoot-out, which remains compelling viewing for the neutral but is utterly agonising for the supporters with a vested interest.
As it happens, Chelsea should have won it but John Terry fluffed the most important kick of his life and United claimed a third European Cup when Edwin van der Sar saved from Nicolas Anelka.
There would be no repeat of the unpleasant scenes that I witnessed in the Chelsea v Manchester United fixture of nine years previously. It was quite the opposite in fact.
I wouldn’t say fans of the opposing clubs were swapping scarves, but it wasn’t far off that.
Everybody was too preoccupied with the basic matter of dealing with the unfamiliar surroundings. The local constabulary certainly didn’t look like the type to look sympathetically towards English football fans wanting to cause mischief.
So we all took a few snaps, stood around on the streets and in bars saying how bizarre the whole thing was and eventually headed home with contrasting memories of an unforgettable night.
Source: Dailymail
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I really can’t believe it. I pray Rooney is ok for the cup!