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 Mark Meehan to look back at the 1998-99 season.
This season saw Chelsea compete in the Champions’ League for the first time. With Gianluca Vialli retiring, Chris Sutton was bought from Blackburn Rovers for £10 million and it was hoped that he would provide the goals to mount a challenge on the elusive Premier League title and deep in to Europe.
With the addition of French World Cup winning Captain, Didier Deschamps, Chelsea had a squad full of foreign world class talent and many believed they were set up to do well. The season began with a 4-0 rout of Sunderland and Gus Poyet’s stunning goal which augered well.
In the first group stage of the Champions’ League, Chelsea proved they were at home in Europe’s elite competition with impressive draws against AC Milan, home and away and a staggering 5-0 away victory over Galatasary. But Vialli was finding squad rotation difficult and after the highs of european competition, League form suffered with poor results against Watford, Liverpool, Everton, Leeds and most notably Arsenal at home thanks to a 15 minute hat-trick by Kanu.
At least Chelsea beat European Champions and treble winners Man Utd 5-0 and even the out of form and out of his depth Chris Sutton scored.
In part two we continue the season from January all the way to Wembley via the Camp Nou…
