The Premier League is 20 years old and has enjoyed plenty of highlights. Here, Total Football continues its new series looking back at some of the highs and lows.
Although it wasn’t their most vintage season, Manchester United were still too good for everyone else, finishing up ten points clear to take their seventh title in nine seasons.
It was a memorable season for Liverpool too, with a treble of cup competition successes.
Coventry City’s stay in the Premier League sadly ended. The Sky Blues went down after 34 successive seasons in the top flight, along with Bradford City and Premier League returnees, Manchester City.
CHAMPIONS: Manchester United
RUNNERS-UP: Arsenal
THIRD PLACE: Liverpool
RELEGATED: Manchester City, Coventry City, Bradford City
TOP SCORERS: Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (Chelsea) 23, Marcus Stewart (Ipswich Town) 19, Thierry Henry (Arsenal) 17, Marc Viduka (Leeds United) 17, Michael Owen (Liverpool) 16, Teddy Sheringham (Manchester United) 15, Emile Heskey (Liverpool) 14, Kevin Phillips (Sunderland) 14, Alen Boksic (Middlesbrough) 12, Alan Smith (Leeds United) 11, Gus Poyet (Chelsea) 11, Jonatan Johansson (Charlton Athletic) 11, James Beattie (Southampton) 11
HIGHEST SCORING GAMES: Arsenal 5-3 Charlton Athletic (26 August 2000), Chelsea 6-1 Coventry City (22 October 2000), Leeds United 4-3 Liverpool (4 November 2000)
PFA PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Teddy Sheringham (Manchester United)
PFA YOUNG PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Steven Gerrard (Liverpool)
The summer of 2000 posed many questions for the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal, Leeds United and Liverpool. Just how could they stop Manchester United?
The ultimate answer was no-one, as Sir Alex Ferguson’s side wrapped up another Premier League title on Easter Saturday, five weeks before the season concluded.
Pre-season saw the usual flurry of transfer activity as the British transfer record, set by Alan Shearer’s move to Newcastle four years ago was equalled.
Chelsea paid relegated Atletico Madrid £15m, to bring Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink back to England after a season away. Gianluca Vialli also splashed out £5.6m on Croatian sicknote, Mario Stanic.
Leaving Stamford Bridge after an unsuccessful season was Chris Sutton, who joined Celtic for £6m and Romanian full back Dan Petrescu for Bradford City after a disagreement with the manager.
Arsene Wenger weakened his squad with the double sale of Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit to Barcelona, for a combined fee of £30m. Euro 2000 winners, Sylvain Wiltord and Robert Pires replaced them, along with Brazilian midfielder Edu.
Nick Barmby made the controversial move across Stanley Park from Everton to Liverpool, becoming the first player to do this in nearly four decades. Gary McAllister was also captured by Gerard Houllier on a free transfer from Coventry City.
Coventry also sold Robbie Keane to Inter Milan for £13m and the lack of replacement would turn out to be a big mistake made by manager Gordon Strachan.
Tottenham broke their club transfer record to sign the prominent Ukrainian attacker Sergei Rebrov for £11m from Dynamo Kiev.
David Ginola was controversially sold to Aston Villa and Newcastle added young striker Carl Cort to their ranks from relegated Wimbledon.
The one main managerial change over the summer had been Martin O’Neill’s decision to leave Leicester City and take over at Celtic. He was replaced at Filbert Street by former Gillingham boss, Peter Taylor.
Vialli axed
After an impressive 2-0 victory over Manchester United in the Charity Shield, hopes were high at Chelsea for a title challenge to the Red Devils but it never materialised.
Inconsistency dogged their early season, highlighted by a shock 2-0 away loss to Bradford City.
In early September, with just one win from four games, Gianluca Vialli was sacked and replaced by the almost unknown Claudio Ranieri. His first game was at Old Trafford.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink scored one of the goals of the season and the Blues did brilliantly to fightback from 3-1 down to earn a thrilling point in a 3-3 draw. A 3-0 win over Liverpool followed, to settle the jitters at Stamford Bridge.
Defending champions Manchester United opened up with a routine 2-0 triumph over Newcastle United, courtesy of goals from Ronny Johnsen and Andy Cole. Once again, they stayed unbeaten until October.
Arsenal’s Patrick Vieira was in the headlines for the wrong reasons in the early weeks, with his main problem, staying on the field until full-time.
Vieira was sent off in Arsenal’s opening day defeat at Sunderland, before joining Gary McAllister and Dietmar Hamann for an early shower two nights later, when Arsenal beat Liverpool 2-0 in a stormy encounter at Highbury.
Under new manager Peter Taylor, Leicester City made a brilliant start as they went unbeaten in their first eight games. A 0-0 draw at Sunderland on 1 October took them top, for the first time since 1963.
Aston Villa had been hoping that Luc Nilis would find the goals after his summer move from Dutch football. He scored a stunning goal on his home debut with Chelsea but his move turned into tragedy for both club and player.
In Villa’s 2-1 away win at Ipswich in September, an unfortunate collision with Tractor Boys goalkeeper Richard Wright left Nilis with a broken leg, which sadly turned out to be a career ending injury.
Inspiration from Henry
Manchester United’s first defeat of the Premier League season arrived at Highbury, with a moment of inspiration from Thierry Henry.
With his back to goal, the French star chipped the ball in the air, turned brilliantly and volleyed an amazing shot, which left his international colleague Fabian Barthez watching in awe.
The 1-0 win for Arsenal showed their excellent home form but seven away defeats proved out to be very costly.
United went from strength to strength and a 3-0 win at former leaders Leicester City a fortnight later, saw them regain top spot. It was a position that they would keep throughout the remainder of the season.
After being released by Leicester, Stan Collymore turned up briefly at Bradford City and he produced a brilliant overhead kick on his debut, in the Yorkshire derby with Leeds at the end of October.
The 1-1 draw was a positive result for the Bantams but with just one win in their first 15 games, manager Chris Hutchings was dismissed in November and replaced by Jim Jefferies.
Leeds had a stuttering start too, as Champions League participation left them in the bottom half of the table until mid-January.
However, one of David O’Leary’s summer signings, Marc Viduka was becoming a star at Elland Road. He scored an incredible four goals as Leeds beat Liverpool 4-3 in November in what remains, one of the greatest Premier League games ever.
Later in the month, Leeds went onto break the Premier League transfer record, by paying West Ham United £18m for defender Rio Ferdinand.
Changes at Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough had made a slow start and Chairman Steve Gibson started panicking as Christmas approached.
With the club in the bottom three, the call was made to ex-England manager Terry Venables, who took over joint responsibility of the manager’s job with current boss, Bryan Robson.
Having started the season brightly, Tyneside rivals Newcastle slipped down the table as Alan Shearer’s season was ended by injury.
This came on the back of a 5-0 defeat at Arsenal, with Ray Parlour being the unlikely hat-trick hero. November 1997 was the last time that Newcastle had won in London, a sobering statistic.
Before 17 December, Liverpool had only collected one away win all season and that had been a 4-0 hiding of Derby County.
Danny Murphy’s beautifully placed free-kick saw them pull off a surprising 1-0 away win at Manchester United.
The Reds followed that up with a highly impressive 4-0 walloping of Arsenal at Anfield, with Steven Gerrard one of the players on target. Gerrard’s consistent form throughout would see him win the PFA Young Player of the Year award at the end of the season.
It was another unspectacular season for Everton but in a relatively low key draw with West Ham, Paolo di Canio showed his good sportsmanship.
With goalkeeper Paul Gerrard injured in an earlier challenge, the Hammers played on with the chance to take the lead. The ball was crossed to di Canio, who sportingly picked the ball up and stopped play himself, so the distressed Gerrard could get treatment. It won him a deserved round of applause.
Sunderland vault into second
By New Years Day, big names such as Leeds, Aston Villa and Chelsea were in the bottom half and the unlikely sides of Ipswich, Sunderland and Leicester were in the top five.
Peter Reid’s side were producing miracles again and watched on by the newly appointed England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, won 2-0 at West Ham in early January to go into a true second place in the table.
Reid’s team did fall away in the latter stages, winning just three of their last 15 matches but they still managed to come seventh in the table, for a second successive season.
A humiliating FA Cup home defeat to Wycombe Wanderers in March was the catalyst for Leicester’s fall from grace. Taylor’s side won just one more match and slipped from fifth to 13th in the final positions.
However, George Burley was doing an unbelievable job at Ipswich, with Marcus Stewart scoring 19 goals and on a limited budget; they were challenging Liverpool and an improving Leeds for Champions League qualification.
In January 2001, Sir Alex Ferguson announced his decision to retire as Manchester United manager at the end of the 2001-02 campaign. Of course, that ultimately never happened.
One individual who did leave Old Trafford was Mark Bosnich, whose fall from grace would continue at Chelsea.
At the end of February, the gulfing class between Manchester United and Arsenal was evident, when the sides met at Old Trafford.
Dwight Yorke scored a first half hat-trick, with further goals from Roy Keane, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and PFA Player of the Year, Teddy Sheringham helping United to a stunning 6-1 win.
Arsenal fell 16 points behind and the title race, if there ever was one, was officially over.
Top of the class again
Infront of a record Premier League crowd at the time of 67,637 on 14 April, Manchester United beat relegation candidates Coventry City 4-2 on Easter Saturday lunchtime.
A few hours later, it was all over as Arsenal fell to a shock 3-0 home defeat to Middlesbrough, not helped by own goals from Brazilians, Edu and Silvinho. United had their seventh title in nine years.
Tottenham sacked George Graham in March for an alleged breach of contract. Replacing Graham was Glenn Hoddle, who walked out on Southampton, to the disgust of the Saints fans.
Hoddle’s first match in charge was a North London derby, overshadowed that morning by the sad news that Gunners championship-winning midfielder David Rocastle, had died after a battle with cancer at the tender age of 33. Arsenal won the game 2-0.
Bradford’s relegation was confirmed on 28 April, when they lost 2-1 at Everton. They went down with the fewest wins, fewest goals and the leakiest defence.
Derby helped their relegation outlook, when a brilliant Malcolm Christie strike helped them beat Manchester United 1-0 at Old Trafford.
United were being watched on by their new attacking signing, Ruud van Nistlerooy, who had completed his protracted move to the Theatre of Dreams.
Coventry went to Villa Park on the penultimate weekend, knowing a victory was paramount. Two goals from captain Mustapha Hadji had their fans dreaming of the great escape but Villa fought back in the second half.
Paul Merson’s dramatic late goal had commentator Rob Palmer to sum it up; “That’s the killer that is the killer, Coventry City are going down.”
Two nights later, Manchester City were consigned to Division One, after losing 2-1 at Ipswich and Joe Royle ultimately lost his job.
The perfect send-off at The Dell
The main story on the final day of the season came at The Dell, where Southampton said an emotional goodbye to the ground that had graced their presence for 103 years.
It got the perfect send-off, as Matt Le Tissier came off the bench to score his only goal of the season, which was enough to beat Arsenal 3-2. Le Tissier had to have the final say on this last day.
Chelsea secured UEFA Cup qualification with final day victory at Maine Road. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink won the Golden Boot, ending his season with a tally of 23 goals.
The final Champions League spot went to Liverpool, who followed up their terrific treble of cup successes with reward for their efforts in the league.
Robbie Fowler scored a second half double, with Danny Murphy and Michael Owen also finding the target in a 4-0 victory at Charlton Athletic.
After Good Friday defeat at home to Leeds, six wins in their last seven was enough for Liverpool to grab third position.
Leeds’s 3-1 win over Leicester was academic and they would have to settle for UEFA Cup football, although reaching the final four of the Champions League was a sensational feat for the Yorkshire club.
A 1-1 draw at Derby nailed Ipswich Town into fifth but their success had been one of the stories of the season. European qualification had been ensured and George Burley was the deserved winner of manager of the season.
As the ninth Premier League season concluded, Harry Redknapp’s seven year reign at Upton Park ended, as he was mysteriously sacked and the BBC said goodbye to Premier League highlights, as ITV outbid them to win the rights for the next three seasons.
There were plenty of changes that looked set to happen in the coming years but it was going to take something special to knock Manchester United off their perch, at the top of English football.
By Simon Wright - Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88
Comments
Post a Comment