Wednesday, March 10, 1999 Published at 21:42 GMT
Deadly Dwight beats the Blues
Yorke is engulfed by his team-mates after opening the scoring
Chelsea 0-2 Manchester United
Deadly Dwight Yorke hit two clinical goals to send Manchester United into the last four of the FA Cup with victory in a thrilling quarter-final replay at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea may have carved out the better openings, but their strike pairing of Tore Andre Flo and Gianfranco Zola were in subdued form and a host of gilt-edged chances were squandered.
United held firm in defence and Yorke made the difference up front, opening the scoring after four minutes and then wrapping up victory with a sublime second on the hour.
The open, flowing contest was In stark contrast to Sunday's lacklustre 0-0 draw.
United, with Yorke and Andy Cole restored to the starting line-up after being rested on the bench for the first game, burst out of the blocks and stunned the Blues with an early goal.
The crowd were then treated to a synchronised "babes-in-arms" celebration by United's players, in recognition of Beckham becoming a father last week.
Chelsea began to find their feet and created a string of half-chances - but Gianfranco Zola, Marcel Desailly and Jody Morris, who came close with three sharp strikes, were unable to capitalise.
Flo fluffs it
Chelsea should have equalised after 54 minutes, following a flowing move, but they were denied a goal in farcical fashion.
Morris sent Celestine Babayaro clear on the left with a delightful cross-field ball. The Nigerian crossed to the far post, where Denis Wise beat Schmeichel with a low shot only to see it hit his own player, Flo, who had fallen in the six-yard box, and bounce clear.
A minute later Wise was back up the other end, producing a superb sliding tackle to keep out a Paul Scholes effort.
A crunching tackle from Cole forced Desailly off the ball 25 yards out and it broke to Yorke, who weighed up the options before clipping a delightful shot over Ed de Goey with the outside of his boot.
Morris missed a great chance to reduce the deficit from Graeme Le Saux's cross, but rather than hit it first time he took an extra touch and allowed Schmeichel to narrow the angle.
The home side were creating the majority of the chances but they could not hit the target, as Bernard Lambourde and Roberto Di Matteo both went close.
But the best opening of the lot fell to substitute Michael Forsell with 15 minutes to go. The Finnish teenager beat the off-side trap and had just Schmeichel to beat but somehow sliced his shot wide.
Beckham forced de Goey into a flying save with a curling free-kick - but Alex Ferguson, with his eyes on the Champions' League clash with Inter Milan next week, withdrew Yorke, Cole and Ryan Giggs and was happy to see his side just play out time.
Chelsea: De Goey, Lambourde, Desailly, Leboeuf, Le Saux, Wise, Morris, Di Matteo, Babayaro, Flo, Zola. Subs: Goldbaek, Hitchcock, Myers, Newton, Forssell.
Man Utd: Schmeichel, G. Neville, Stam, Berg, Irwin, Beckham, Keane, Scholes, Giggs, Cole, Yorke. Subs: P. Neville, Blomqvist, Van Der Gouw, Solskjaer, Brown.
Referee: P Du