Nationality: Netherlands
Position: Striker
D.O.B: 27th March 1972, Paramaribo, Surinam
Time Spent With Chelsea: 2000-Present
Previous Clubs: Telstar, AZ Alkmaar, Campomaio, Boavista, Leeds, Atletico Madrid
Cost: £15 million
Debut: 13th August 2000 vs Manchester United (Charity Shield)
Chelsea Record (as of 21/8/02): 90 games, 55 goals
International Record: 18 caps, 7 goals
Did You Know that Jimmy’s real name is in fact Jerrel!
For years, Chelsea had been crying out for a prolific goal scorer, ever since the days of Kerry Dixon. The likes of Paul Furlong, Mark Stein, Pierluigi Casiraghi and Chris Sutton were all brought in at one time or another during the nineties, but all failed miserably to make an impact at the club. The only one who could be excused was Gigi Casiraghi and that was only because he suffered a career ending knee injury so early in his Chelsea career.
But in the summer of 2000, Gianluca Vialli spent £15 million to try and correct this problem with the signing of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Despite Luca’s sacking, after only having the pleasure of working with Jimmy for 7 games, Jimmy would go on to have a remarkable first season at the club, although it was only personal glory… The club finished in a disappointing 6th place and were dumped out of the cup competitions in the early stages.
Yet Jimmy helped himself to 23 goals in the league, finishing 4 goals clear of Marcus Stewart in the race for the Golden Boot. He opened his account for the season with a goal on his debut against Manchester United in the Charity Shield and then bagged one against West Ham in the opening league game.
His next two goals just happened to be against Arsenal and Manchester United… The Arsenal goal was typical of Jimmy, firing the ball perfectly into the bottom corner. But nobody could have predicted his goal against United. Standing on the edge of the box, Jimmy chested down Flo’s hooked cross, before firing an unstoppable screamer into the top corner.
That season, he would score a number of memorable goals, including a 4 goal haul against Coventry, a couple of strikes against Spurs, another goal against United, a screamer against Arsenal in the FA Cup and a well worked goal versus Liverpool.
Jimmy also bagged the goal against West Ham that ended Chelsea’s 10-month winless streak away from home. He ended the season with 5 goals in his last 3 games, helping the Blues into a European spot.
The 2001/2002 season would prove to be another memorable one for Jimmy, although injury cut short his season and ended a boyhood dream…
He failed to score in the opening game of the season against Newcastle but would manage to bag one against Southampton, starting a memorable goal scoring run. Including the goal against Southampton, he scored in 6 straight games. Had he scored in a game against Leeds then he would have gone on to break the Premiership record for consecutive goal streak as he scored in his next 3 outings after that.
But the goal scoring run couldn’t continue forever and Jimmy
went through a lean spell. Unfortunately for the club, it meant a lean spell for them too and Claudio Ranieri had to be talked out of resigning as the Blue boo-boys were getting the better of him.
But any talk of resignation would soon be long gone following a game against Manchester United at Old Trafford. No Chelsea fan could have imagined what would happen in this game as the Blues ran out 3-0 winners. Jimmy scored the crucial second and set up the first, playing a man of the match performance.
He went on to score several braces and a hat trick against Spurs but he failed to find any real consistency with his goal scoring. He went into the start of April on top of the scoring charts and, despite only scoring 2 more goals in the rest of the season, he still managed to finish runner up in the race for the Golden Boot.
But even better for Jimmy, he had an FA Cup Final to look forward to against Arsenal. Unfortunately, injury a week earlier left him a major doubt for the game and, despite starting the match, it was obvious he lacked fitness. A disappointing performance resulted in his substitution midway through the second half and the Blues would lose the match 2-0.
Jimmy’s time with Chelsea has seen him gain a lot of personal glory with his goal scoring exploits and, despite the way it may seem, he is desperate for the team to have some success, as his only silverware remains the Portuguese Cup with Boavista. Let’s hope that Jimmy can put that right this year…