Football / European Cup-Winners' Cup: Chelsea's effort is to no avail

Chelsea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0 Austria Vienna. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0 IT WAS more a case of goodnight Chelsea than goodnight Vienna at Stamford Bridge last night as the European ambitions of Glenn Hoddle's team appeared to be well and truly dashed in this Cup-Winners' Cup second-round first- leg tie by a highly disciplined defensive performance from an Austrian side reduced to 10 men for the last 22 minutes, after the sending off of Manfred Schmid.

Without question it was a frustrating night for Chelsea - rarely can a monopoly of possession have shown such scant reward - but whether they were deserving of something better is a moot point. Certainly, marks for enterprise lagged far behind those for effort.

Hoddle felt that everything went right until the final third when 'our luck ran out' but, if that suggests that only their finishing was awry, it was telling only half the story.

Since putting four past Viktoria Zizkov on their return to European action after an absence of 23 years, Chelsea have become curiously introverted, only once scoring more than one goal in any of their nine games since. It must be cause for concern for Hoddle, despite his brave face, as he contemplates the second leg of this tie.

Just as against their Czech Republic opponents in the previous round, their task was complicated by injury. At least it solved Hoddle's permutation problem of which two among his five 'foreigners' to omit: two Scots, Steve Clarke and John Spencer, joining one Scott, Minto, on the sidelines.

It was bad enough being deprived of two adventurous full-backs without attack having the sting of the waspish Spencer withdrawn. How they missed him and not least the invention of Hoddle, the Chelsea manager being numbered among the injured.

News of the indiscipline which had led to Dennis Wise being stripped of the captaincy had obviously filtered through to the Austrians, who seemed bent on putting his suspect temperament to the test, judging by the way Schmid clobbered him twice in the first 10 minutes to earn himself the first of his coloured cards.

The loss of Frank Sinclair with a pulled hamstring - 'a nasty one' according to Hoddle - after 12 minutes further disrupted Chelsea's team pattern but, to their credit, they never ceased in their relentless drive forwards.

The fact remains, however, that for all their huff and puff it was not until the 50th minute that Franz Wohlfahrt, the Austrian international goalkeeper, had a serious save to make, and then he did particularly well to push a shot from the substitute, Anthony Barness, around a post.

Whether or not from the ensuing corner, Wohlfahrt would have reached Eddie Newton's shot, struck on the turn, was another matter. Likewise two efforts from Paul Furlong, which flew marginally wide and over the target.

David Rocastle certainly deserved better when he hit a post after a fine piece of dribbling from yesteryear, having been set up by Graham Rix, 37 this Sunday.

By then Schmid had been dismissed for the last of his transgressions against Wise. It may be 10 years since Austria Vienna progressed past the second round in European competition, but 19 consecutive seasons in it had to count for something. Their experience may yet prove decisive in this tie against Chelsea, who could become their first English victims in five attempts.

'It's not such a mountain we've got to climb,' Hoddle observed afterwards, but if there is any mountaineering to be done the Austrians look better equipped.

Chelsea (4-4-2): Kharin; Newton, Kjeldbjerg, Johnsen, Sinclair (Barness, 13; Rix, 76); Rocastle, Peacock, Spackman, Wise; Furlong, Shipperley.

Austria Vienna (1-3-4-2): Wohlfahrt; Zsak; Kogler, Pfeffer, Sekerlioglu; Schmid, Flogel, Prosenik, Belajic; Mjelde (Zechner, 70), Ogris (Narbekovas, 52).

Referee: A Ouzounov (Bulgaria).

(Photograph omitted)