2000–01 in English football


The 2000–01 season was the 121st season of competitive football in England.

Overview

secured their third Premiership title in succession and their seventh title in just nine seasons. Liverpool became only the second English side to win the League Cup and FA Cup in the same season, also adding the UEFA Cup to make it a unique treble.
Fulham reached the Premiership as Division One champions to secure their five-season rise from Division Three. They also became the first club to have played in all four divisions of the English league since the creation of the Premiership.
Luton Town – who had been League Cup winners 13 years prior and top division members until nine years prior – and Oxford United – who had been League Cup winners 15 years earlier and top division members until 13 years prior – were relegated to Division Three.
Mid-table Division Two side Wycombe Wanderers beat all odds by reaching the FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool, beating Division One sides Millwall, Wolverhampton Wanderers, and Wimbledon, as well as Premier League side Leicester Cityen route to the semis. Wycombe were defeated 2–1 at Villa Park.

Successful managers

guided newly promoted Ipswich Town to fifth place in the Premiership and achieved qualification for the UEFA Cup.
Gérard Houllier won a treble of trophies with Liverpool after they triumphed in the FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup.
Sir Alex Ferguson became the first manager in English football to win three successive league titles after Manchester United topped the Premiership's final table for the third year in a row.
Alan Curbishley consolidated newly promoted Charlton Athletic in the Premiership with a ninth-place finish, their highest finish in nearly 50 years.
Jean Tigana won the Division One title with Fulham to gain promotion to the Premiership and end their 33-year exile from the top flight of English football.
Mark McGhee enjoyed success in his first season as Millwall manager by guiding them to the Division Two title.
Ronnie Moore surprised all the observers by winning a second successive promotion with Rotherham United, who were this time elevated into Division One.
Ray Graydon won his second promotion in three years with Walsall, who triumphed in the Division Two playoffs.
Micky Adams gave Brighton & Hove Albion their most successful season for years as they ended the campaign as Division Three champions.
Brian Talbot took Rushden & Diamonds, founded just nine years prior, into the Football League as Conference champions.

Successful players

, Chelsea's record signing at £15 million, topped the Premiership goalscoring charts with 23 goals.
Marcus Stewart was the Premiership's second-highest goalscorer with 19 goals for newly promoted Ipswich Town, who qualified for the UEFA Cup.
Teddy Sheringham, 35, was voted Player of the Year by both the PFA and FWA after helping Manchester United win their third successive Premiership title.
Michael Owen helped Liverpool end their six-year trophy drought after his prolific goalscoring helped them win a treble of the FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup.
Steven Gerrard was voted PFA Young Player of the Year as well as winning three major trophies in a single season with Liverpool.
Young French striker Louis Saha was arguably the hottest prospect outside the Premiership after his goals helped Fulham win the Division One title to end their 33-year exile from the top flight.
Veteran striker Mark Hughes, 37, helped Blackburn Rovers return to the Premiership two years after they were relegated.
Jamie Cureton was Division Two's top goalscorer with 27 strikes for Reading.
Bobby Zamora established himself as one of the Football League's top marksmen after helping Brighton & Hove Albion win the Division Three title.
Jermain Defoe, aged 19 and on loan to AFC Bournemouth from West Ham United, scored in ten successive Division Two matches while on loan at the Dean Court side.

Events

Swede Eriksson is England's first foreign coach

With pressure building up on him following England's dismal UEFA Euro 2000 campaign, Kevin Keegan resigned as manager of the England national team just minutes after a 1–0 defeat to Germany in the opening 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifying match. The match, played 7 October 2000, was also the last played at Wembley Stadium. Howard Wilkinson and Peter Taylor each had one-match stints as caretaker manager before Sven-Göran Eriksson accepted The Football Association's offer to become the new national coach. Former Lazio coach Eriksson, 52, was the first foreigner to be appointed coach of the England national team. His first match in charge was a 3–0 win over Spain on 28 February. England would go on to win their first five matches under Eriksson, a highly promising start.

Houllier delivers three for Liverpool

Liverpool captured the 2000–01 UEFA Cup on 16 May with a 5–4 win over Alavés. The match was won in the 116th minute by golden goal, and it completed a triplet of trophies for Liverpool which ended their six-year trophy drought as well as delivering their first trophies under Houllier's management. The League Cup had already been won with a penalty shoot-out triumph over Birmingham City in the first English final at the Millennium Stadium, and the FA Cup was secured after a dramatic 2–1 win over Arsenal in which Michael Owen scored two late goals after Freddie Ljungberg had put Arsenal ahead.

Sir Alex makes history with United

Sir Alex Ferguson became the first manager in English football to win three successive League titles after Manchester United were crowned Premier League champions for the third season running. Their title was secured with 80 points and a 10-point gap between themselves and runners-up Arsenal. Most bookmakers had closed their books before the turn of the New Year and admitted that United were certain of their seventh Premier League title in the last nine years. The Red Devils' 6–1 home league victory over Arsenal on 25 February 2001 was the turning point as Arsenal's hopes of winning the title were ended in late April 2001.
United were not the first team to win three straight league titles. Huddersfield Town, Arsenal and Liverpool had all done it before, but with managerial changes in between.

Fulham back in the big time

won the Division One title to end their 33-year absence from the top flight. The key men in this success were money-spinning chairman Mohamed Al-Fayed, enthusiastic manager Jean Tigana and free scoring striker Louis Saha.
Fulham's return to the top flight of English football came four years after they had won promotion from Division Three and been taken over by Al-Fayed in a £30 million deal. With his target of Premiership football finally achieved, al Fayed was now determined to turn Fulham into the "Manchester United of the South".

Burley clinches Manager of the Year award

Despite Sir Alex Ferguson winning a third successive Premiership title with Manchester United and Gérard Houllier's three successes in cup competitions, Ipswich Town's George Burley received the Manager of the Year award.
Burley, 45, had been at Portman Road since December 1994, when he took over from John Lyall at an Ipswich side rooted to the foot of the Premiership. He was unable to save them from the drop but quickly put together a new team in hope of getting Ipswich back in the elite of English football. They endured three successive playoff failures before winning the Division One playoff final in 2000 and ending a five-year exile from the Premiership.
Most people had tipped Ipswich to go straight back down in 2000–01, but they spent most of the season in the top five and finished fifth to claim a 2001–02 UEFA Cup place – their first foray in Europe for 20 years.

Manchester United's record breaking summer

After the end of the 2000–01 season, Sir Alex Ferguson began a summer of heavy spending. Before the season was over he had agreed an English record fee of £19 million with PSV for Ruud van Nistelrooy, the 25-year-old Dutch striker who had agreed to sign for United a year earlier, but his original move was scrapped after he suffered a serious knee injury. Then, on 12 July, Ferguson broke the English transfer fee record again. This time he brought in Argentine midfielder Juan Sebastián Verón, 26, from Lazio in a £28.1 million deal.

Basement battle for survival

At the bottom of The Football League, the battle for survival went to the very last day of the season, with the bottom two sides Torquay United and Barnet playing each other at Barnet's Underhill Ground. Both teams knew that if they lost they would be relegated to the Conference. Torquay were 3–0 up at half-time, but Barnet, playing five up front for periods of the second half scored twice to keep the tension levels high until the end of the match. It finished 3–2 to Torquay and Barnet lost their league place.

Honours

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League tables

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Manchester United became the fourth team in history to win the English league title three seasons in a row. The other team to hit the headlines were Liverpool, who finished third but won both domestic cup competitions as well as the UEFA Cup. Their opponents in the FA Cup final were league runners-up Arsenal. But the biggest surprise of the season came with Ipswich Town, who were newly promoted to the Premiership after five years away and most people's favourites for the drop. Ipswich surprised all the observers by challenging for a place in the top-three and eventually winding up in fifth place, enough to merit UEFA Cup qualification. It was the Suffolk club's highest league finish since 1982.
Newly promoted Charlton Athletic finished an impressive ninth, while Leicester City started the season as unlikely title contenders, but lost nine of their final ten Premiership matches to finish 13th.
Bradford City were the first team to be relegated, having won just five Premiership games all season in their second season after promotion. Joining them were newly promoted Manchester City and Coventry City, whose luck finally ran out after 34 years in the top flight.
Leading goalscorer: Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink – 23

[Football League First Division]

Under the management of Jean Tigana, but with only two changes to the previous season's first team, Fulham won the division easily. Blackburn Rovers managed to edge close rivals Bolton Wanderers to the automatic promotion spot. However, their rivalry would continue the following season, as Bolton defeated Preston North End in the playoffs.
Burnley's seventh-place finish put them just one place short of the playoffs and the chance of ending their 25-year absence from the top flight. Wimbledon finished eighth in their first season outside the top flight for 15 years. Watford finished ninth after a strong start to the season suggested that they would win promotion back to the Premier League, prompting the resignation of Graham Taylor as manager and the appointment of Gianluca Vialli in his place.
Tranmere's recent cup successes failed to translate into league form, and they finished bottom, just behind Queens Park Rangers, who fell into the third tier for the first time since the 1960s. An unlikely series of results in the final few weeks sent Huddersfield down to Division Two, when they had looked safe at the start of April. Narrowly avoiding relegation were Crystal Palace, whose dramatic last day victory over Stockport ensured survival for a club who spent the previous two seasons struggling with a financial crisis.
Leading goalscorer: Louis Saha – 27

[Football League Second Division]

Millwall, who had failed to impress since relegation from the First Division in 1996, finally secured promotion as divisional champions. Making perhaps bigger headlines were unfashionable Rotherham United, who instead of struggling as the pundits predicted, took the second automatic promotion spot, pushing Millwall perilously close for the title. Walsall recovered from the previous year's last-day relegation and won the playoffs.
Oxford finished bottom of the table by some distance, never looking as if they would survive and setting a number of unwanted records for the division. Swansea – who had beaten Rotherham to the Division Three title the previous season – proved almost as bad as Oxford, with their survival hopes being little better. Much was expected of Luton following massive pre-season overhauls both on and off the pitch; unfortunately their season ended in crushing disappointment, and relegation. Bristol Rovers occupied the final relegation spot, entering the League's bottom tier for the first time in their history. Swindon narrowly avoided a second successive relegation.
Leading goalscorer: Jamie Cureton and Neil Harris, 27

[Football League Third Division]

After their financial nightmares and near-relegations of the previous years, Brighton finally started making serious progress, as they won the title. Chesterfield would have taken the runners-up spot; however, financial irregularities resulted in a nine-point deduction, handing second place to Cardiff instead, though Chesterfield still took the final automatic promotion spot. Blackpool sneaked into the playoffs near the end of the season, then proceeded to win them, ensuring that their spell in Division Three was a short one.
A number of teams were threatened with relegation during the course of the season. However, in the end, Barnet – who moved long-serving manager John Still upstairs to make way for the higher-profile appointment of Tony Cottee early in the season – suffered a stunning collapse after a bright start, leading to a "winner takes all, loser stands small" match with Torquay on the final day of the season. Torquay won the match and ensured League survival, while Barnet returned to the Conference after a decade in the league. Carlisle endured a third successive relegation battle and were successful once again.
Leading goalscorer: Bobby Zamora, 28
Note: Cardiff City left administration and made arrangements before promotion as runner up and Chesterfield deducted 9 points for beginning financial irregularities.

Diary of the season

Two Chelsea hooligans are jailed for planning violence at matches after being exposed by an undercover journalist in a BBC documentary. Jason Marriner, 33, of Feltham, is sentenced to six years in prison, and 36-year-old Andrew Frain of Reading is sentenced to seven years behind bars. Both are banned from attending all football matches in England and Wales for the next 20 years.

[UEFA Champions League]

Group phase

From Division One to the Premier League:
From Division Two to Division One:
From Division Three to Division Two:
From The Football Conference to Division Three:

Relegated teams

From the Premier League to Division One:
From Division One to Division Two:
From Division Two to Division Three:
From Division Three to The Football Conference:

Major Transfer deals

2000

3 August 2000: Pierluigi Casiraghi, 31-year-old Italian striker, retires nearly two years after he broke his leg in a Premier League match for Chelsea and failed to make a full recovery.
28 September 2000: Steve Bould, 37-year-old central defender, retires after just over a year at Sunderland, having joined them after 11 years at Arsenal where he formed part of one of the most successful defence line-ups of modern times.
8 November 2000: Robbie Earle, 35-year-old Wimbledon and Jamaica midfielder, retires due to a stomach injury.
24 January 2001: Luc Nilis, 33-year-old Belgian striker, retires on medical advice four months after suffering a badly broken leg while playing for Aston Villa against Ipswich Town.
4 May 2001: Dave Watson, 39-year-old central defender, finally retires from playing after 15 years with Everton after accepting an offer to manage Tranmere Rovers.
9 May 2001: Tony Cottee, 35-year-old striker, retires after a brief spell at Millwall during their Division Two promotion run-in.
4 July 2001: Gary Pallister, 36-year-old central defender, retires after 17 years in professional football after three years back at Middlesbrough, who gave him his Football League break when he began his first spell with them in 1984. His biggest successes came at Manchester United between 1989 and 1998, where he won four league titles, three FA Cups, a Football League Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup. He was also capped 22 times by England between 1988 and 1996.

Deaths