The Chelsea FanCast looks back, season by season, to 50 Years of Chelsea history from 1970 to the present day.
Stamford Chidge is joined by Jonathan Kydd and Clayton Beerman to look back at the 1991-92 season, with contributions from John Bumstead and Kerry Dixon.
Chelsea entered the last season of Football League Division One with a new manager, Ian Porterfield, having parted ways with Bobby Campbell the season before.
New signings included Vinnie Jones, Paul Elliot, Joe Allon and Tony Cascarino. But it was to be another disappointing season, finishing 14th, below Wimbledon but above Spurs in 15th! Top scorer was Denis Wise, top appearance maker was Graeme Le Saux but the stand out and Player of the Year was Paul Elliot a graceful and commanding presence at the back.
Ian Porterfield bought a lot of players; was tactically and technically astute and brought in new training methods but was perhaps too inexperienced to manage the big egos and was, basically, too nice. Chelsea’s form was erratic; from the poor to the brilliant to the poor. There was a sense of drifting this season; a lot of players bought but we lost some good ones too; including a bona fide Chelsea legend. Kerry Dixon left the club at the end of the season, having scored 193 goals and nine short of Bobby Tambling’s record. In his final Chelsea season he finished with just 5 goals in 39 appearances.
1991-92 was a nothing season that fizzled out after the Cup exit to Sunderland (again) in the quarter-final. There was a bit of a revolving door feeling – where would it go – introduce more of the talented youth waiting in the wings or bring in some better quality players? With the issue of the future of Stamford Bridge resolved there was also talk of building a new stadium…
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