Chelsea 3 Manchester U 5

Andy Cole

Chel­sea 3 Man­chester Uni­ted 5, Stam­ford Bridge, FA Cup Third Ro­und, Jan­uary 4, 1998. Man­chester Uni­ted de­feated Chel­sea by 5-3 in a thrill­er of mat­ch at Stam­ford Bridge. The Old Traf­ford out­fit were 5-0 up wi­th a quart­er of an hour left thanks to a brace each by Da­vid Beck­ham and Andy Cole plus a single from Teddy Sher­ing­ham, but the West Lon­doners staged a sur­prise late come­back thro­ugh a Graeme Le Saux goal and a Gi­an­luca Vi­al­li double.

De­fend­ing Pre­mier Lea­gue Cham­pi­ons Man­chester Uni­ted came in­to this fix­ture on the back of an un­ex­pec­ted 3-2 de­feat ag­ainst Cov­entry City at High­field Road, whi­le FA Cup hold­ers Chel­sea had lost 1-0 to South­ampton at The Dell in their pre­vi­ous ga­me. Three Li­ons in­ter­na­tion­al Da­vid Beck­ham put Man­chester Uni­ted ahead wi­th a clo­se ran­ge ef­fort in the 23 min­ute of the tussle be­fore he ad­ded a sec­ond for the vis­it­ors five min­utes la­ter when he fou­nd the back of the net wi­th a fe­ro­cious free-kick. Andy Cole then net­ted either si­de of the ha­lf-time break, whi­le strik­ing part­ner Teddy Sher­ing­ham made it 5-0 to the vis­it­ing si­de as the for­ward head­ed ho­me a good cross from Beck­ham af­ter 75 min­utes. Then, in the 78th min­ute, Chel­sea de­fender Graeme Le Saux sco­red wi­th a bril­liant lob over Man­chester Uni­ted and Den­mark goal­keeper Pe­ter Schmei­chel and sud­denly Ruud Gullit´s men came alive. Wi­th just sev­en min­utes re­maining on the watch, Gi­an­luca Vi­al­li pulled an­oth­er goal back for The Blues and the for­mer Ju­ventus marks­man net­ted ag­ain in the 88th min­ute, but un­for­tu­nately for the hosts there wasn’t enough stop­page time to res­cue a draw. Chel­sea Te­am: Ed de Goey, Mi­chael Du­berry, Ste­ve Clarke, Frank Le­b­oeuf, Dan Pet­res­cu, Graeme Le Saux, Rob­erto Di Mat­teo, Ma­rk Nich­olls, Tore An­dre Flo, Ma­rk Hug­hes, Gi­an­franco Zola. Sub­stitutes: Andy My­ers, Gi­an­luca Vi­al­li. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Pe­ter Schmei­chel, Ga­ry Ne­ville, Ronny John­sen, Ga­ry Pal­lister, De­nis Ir­win, Da­vid Beck­ham, Nicky Butt, Ry­an Gig­gs, Paul Scho­les, An­drew Cole, Teddy Sher­ing­ham. Sub­sti­tute: Ole Gun­nar Solskjaer.

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