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1997–98 Chelsea F.C. season

English football club season

Field	Value
club	Chelsea F.C.
season	1997–98
manager	Ruud Gullit (until 12 February)
Gianluca Vialli (from 12 February)
chairman	Ken Bates
league	FA Premier League
league result	[4th](1997-98-fa-premier-league)
cup1	FA Cup
cup1 result	[Third round](1997-98-fa-cup)
cup2	League Cup
cup2 result	[Winners](1997-98-football-league-cup)
cup3	FA Charity Shield
cup3 result	[Runners-up](1997-fa-charity-shield)
cup4	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup
cup4 result	[Winners](1997-98-uefa-cup-winners-cup)
league topscorer	Gianluca Vialli/Tore André Flo (11)
season topscorer	Gianluca Vialli (19)
highest attendance	34,845 (vs. Bolton Wanderers, 10 May)
lowest attendance	29,075 (vs. Blackpool, 19 Apr)
average attendance	32,901
pattern_b1	_chelsea1997h
pattern_la1	_chelsea1997h
pattern_ra1	_chelsea1997h
pattern_sh1	_chelsea9899h
leftarm1	0000FF
body1	0000FF
rightarm1	0000FF
shorts1	0000FF
socks1	FFFFFF
pattern_b2	_chelsea1996a
pattern_ra2	_chelsea1996a
pattern_la2	_chelsea1996a
leftarm2	FFDD00
body2	FFDD00
rightarm2	FFDD00
shorts2	FFDD00
socks2	FFDD00
prevseason	[1996–97](1996-97-chelsea-f-c-season)
nextseason	[1998–99](1998-99-chelsea-f-c-season)

Gianluca Vialli (from 12 February) The 1997–98 season was Chelsea F.C.'s 84th competitive season, their 9th consecutive season in the English top flight and 92nd year as a club.

Season summary

With conceding goals being a major issue last season, Chelsea signed Dutch international goalkeeper Ed de Goey, who proved to be a relative success. Chelsea's only other major signings were young Norwegian striker Tore Andre Flo and Uruguayan international midfielder Gustavo Poyet from Real Zaragoza, who added more goals from an otherwise very defensive midfield. Chelsea were well on course for a top-five finish and success in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and the League Cup when manager Ruud Gullit was sacked on 12 February following a dispute with chairman Ken Bates. His job went to 33-year-old striker Gianluca Vialli, who took on the role of player-manager and achieved instant success - within three months of his appointment, Vialli had guided the Blues to glory on the continent and at Wembley. This success gave Chelsea fans hope that the following season could spell the end of their title wait which began in 1955.

Final league table

Main article: 1997–98 FA Premier League

;Results summary

;Results by round

Results

FA Premier League

Flo Poyet Vialli Petrescu Leboeuf Hughes Wise Monkou Leboeuf Le Saux Zola Winterburn Solskjær Hughes Fowler Poyet Flo Zola Zola Hughes Di Matteo Petrescu Nicholls Vialli Leboeuf Flo Di Matteo Ferguson Duberry Hughes Zola Wise Flo Bent Unsworth Wetherall Vialli Clarke Flo Lee Speed Morris

FA Cup

Date	Round	Opponent	Venue	Result	Attendance	Scorers
4 January 1998	3	Manchester United	H	3–5	34,792	Le Saux, Vialli (2)

League Cup

Date	Round	Opponent	Venue	Result	Attendance	Scorers
15 October 1997	3	Blackburn Rovers	H	1–1	18,671	Di Matteo
After extra time, Chelsea won on 4–1 on penalties
19 November 1997	4	Southampton	H	2–1	20,968	Morris, Flo
7 January 1998	QF	Ipswich Town	A	2–2	22,088	Le Saux, Flo
After extra time, Chelsea won on 4–1 on penalties
28 January 1998	SF	Arsenal	A	[1–2](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sport/51521.stm)	38,144	Hughes
18 February 1998	SF	Arsenal	H	3–1	34,330	Petrescu, Di Matteo, Hughes
29 March 1998	F	Middlesbrough	N	2–0	77,698	Sinclair, Di Matteo

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup

Date	Round	Opponent	Venue	Result	Attendance	Scorers
8 September 1997	1	SVK Slovan Bratislava	H		2–0	23,067	Danny Granville, Di Matteo
2 October 1997	1	SVK Slovan Bratislava	A	2–0	13,850	Di Matteo, Vialli
23 October 1997	2	NOR Tromsø	A	2–3	6,438	Vialli (2)
6 November 1997	2	NOR Tromsø	H	7–1	29,363	Leboeuf, Petrescu (2), Vialli (3), Zola
5 March 1998	QF	ESP Real Betis	A	2–1	31,000	Flo (2)
19 March 1998	QF	ESP Real Betis	H	3–1	32,300	Sinclair, Di Matteo, Zola
2 April 1998	SF	ITA Vicenza	A	0–1	19,319
16 April 1998	SF	ITA Vicenza	H	3–1	33,810	Poyet, Zola, Hughes
13 May 1998	[F](1998-uefa-cup-winners-cup-final)	GER VfB Stuttgart	N	1–0	30,216	Zola

First team squad

:Squad at end of season

Left club during season

Reserve squad

Statistics

|} Statistics taken from http://www.soccerbase.com/squad_season.sd?teamid=536 . Squad details and shirt numbers from https://web.archive.org/web/20130505052001/http://cfchistory.co.uk/ and https://web.archive.org/web/20091027001136/http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/8882/players.html.

Transfers

In

Laurent Charvet - Cannes, loan
Ed de Goey - Feyenoord, £2,250,000, June 1997
Gus Poyet - Real Zaragoza, free, June 1997
Tore André Flo - Brann, £300,000, 1997
Celestine Babayaro - Anderlecht, £2,250,000, 1997
Bernard Lambourde - Bordeaux, 1997
Graeme Le Saux - Blackburn Rovers, £5,000,000, August 1997

Out

David Rocastle - Sabah, released, May 1998

Notes

References

"FootballSquads - Chelsea - 1996/97".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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