FA Carling Premiership Game 33: Wednesday 08 April 1998 Leeds United 3 - 1 Chelsea (Half-time: 2 - 1) Crowd: 37276 Referee: D Elleray (Harrow)
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vs Chelsea - Nick Allen

New Rule 2. Should the ball be pushed around the post by an athletic save by the keeper, a corner shall not be given, however obvious it was, and the defending team shall have a goal kick to relieve the pressure.

New Rule 3. Even if a player is punched in a challenge, and he is left lying motionless, the game will not be stopped until Leeds have reached a threatening position on the edge of the Chelsea box. Then the game will be restarted with a drop ball, and not a free-kick for the foul.

Apart from the antics of David Elleray, who's a wanker, who's a wanker, this was a cracking match. Even if we did start with 7 players who have played Chalf for us, at some time, we didn't play defensively. Jimmy and Harry were murdering their defence, who looked like they'd never met each other before. Wetherall and Hughes were re-enacting Rumble in the Jungle (should that be Rumble in the Puddle), Lucas made sure that Zola will never want to play at Elland Road again, Kelly and Bowyer were superb in their linking of attack and defence, one of them featured in every swift counter attack we had. Martyn was calm, competent, and from one free kick by Wise, he was world class. Halle was hopeless.

We were so much the better team that for all but one ten minute spell of pressure in the first half, it never looked like we would lose this. Chelsea sometimes passed in pretty patterns without ever really getting anywhere, Hiden, Lucas, Wetherall, and Big Bob stopped almost eveything and quickly turned it around, with some very good passing out of defence.

GOALS

1-0 : Oh Jimmy, Jimmy... Harte throws in from the left, midway inside their half, Jimmy turns with the bounce shrugging off a challege, goes past another challenge, moving across the pitch, and then he lashes it home from "exactly 29 yds" according to Sky.

1-1 : They have a throw, level with our box, Hughes breaks through the defensive line, nods the ball back, and somebody who I've never heard of, smacks it home from 12 yards out. No defenders make any challenge. Very Slack.

2-1 : Free kick on the right side, Kelly bends it in, Wetherall towers above evryone, and heads home.

3-1 : Harte, Bowyer, Harte, down the left wing, a whipped in cross to the back post, Jimmy stoops and heads home. Chelsea got themselves in a paddy about this one because it was scored with Zola lying in a heap on the half way line, following a tackle by Lucas which got him a booking. However, Elleray had played advantage, and they would have been through on our goal if Harte hadn't intercepted the ball and turned it into a counter attack. Plus, two minutes later they played on when another of their boys was chewing the turf, and they had several opportuinites to kick it out for him to get attention.

I thought that we were the Gav's Gonads last night (sorry, Mr Burnage). Loads of spirit,and invention, running for each other. And we could have scored quite a few more, Haaland was put through twice by Jimmy, and had them saved twice, while there were plenty of goalmouth scrambles after corners and freekicks that could have gone anywhere.

POINTS

MARTYN-7- one superb save.
KELLY -7- another excellent game
HARTE -6- still caught out of position a few times, but a positive contribution on the whole.
HIDEN -8- again faultless. A veritable Rolls Royce amongst defenders.
MOLENAAR -6- didn't do much right or wrong - substituted at half time
WETHERALL -8- great. He loves coming up against Hughes, its like Godzilla vs King Kong. Good Goal, and it meant something to him, Great attitude.
RADEBE -8- Midfield first half, defence second. Calm, efficient, had a great jinking run into the box, that resulted in obstruction and an indirect freekick. Also threw a great dummy to lose a forward chasing a through ball. Sublime.
BOWYER -7- he is hitting a fine run of consistency, good passing, movement and tackling back - takes up good positions in the box, only for team mates to fail to find him.
HALLE - 4- on the advice of Dr S , three shites is too many, so Shite.
KEWELL - 8 - caused problems all night. occasionally gets knocked off the ball too easily but hey, he'll learn
JIMMY -9- awesome, 19 goals so far, and much more to come..
sub HAALAND -6- Bolstered midfield, and could have scored a couple, also got in the was of Jimmy's hatrick shot.

Hasselbaink enjoys novelty - Michael Walker

It was billed as fifth versus fourth, with third place in the Premiership at stake. What we got, however, was mainly second-rate, although at least we saw goals last night, in contrast to the last meeting between Leeds United and Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in December when sendings-off outnumbered goals by two to nil.

In mitigation it was a filthy evening in Yorkshire, with the pitch in a sufficiently sodden state for it to be inspected before the kick-off. Thus there was ground for a match full of mistakes, and the majority of these were made by Chelsea's unrecognisable defence. For the second game in succession Gianluca Vialli made seven changes, and the novelty factor was greedily exploited by Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, who gobbled up his 18th and 19th goals of a promising first season in English football.

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