With our 3-0 victory over Aston Villa on Saturday making Chelsea just the second club to win 600 Premier League games, we take a look at some of the Blues’ other landmark victories in the top flight over the course of the past 30 seasons...
#50 – Chelsea 5-0 Middlesbrough – 4 February 1996
Chelsea’s inconsistent form in the early years of the Premier League meant that it wasn’t until the fourth season in 1995/96 that we reached a half-century of victories in the competition.
However, Glenn Hoddle’s side celebrated the occasion in some style as a hat-trick by Gavin Peacock (the first by a Chelsea player for six years) and a goal each by John Spencer and Paul Furlong took us to the 50-win mark with a somewhat-fitting 5-0 thumping of Middlesbrough at Stamford Bridge.
It was our biggest win to that point in the Premier League and our largest margin of victory in a top-flight game for over 30 years.
#100 – Chelsea 1-0 Southampton – 6 February 1999
Chelsea were in a very different position by the time we reached the century mark in wins in the 1998/99 season as we found ourselves involved in a race for the title with Manchester United and Arsenal.
The Gunners had ended our 21-match unbeaten league run a week earlier but a superb free-kick by Gianfranco Zola after 11 minutes proved decisive against Southampton as we returned to winning ways and stayed in the hunt for league glory until the closing weeks of the campaign.
#200 – Chelsea 5-2 Wolverhampton Wanderers – 27 March 2004
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink certainly knew how to mark an occasion as he celebrated his 32nd birthday by scoring his 100th Premier League goal and inspiring our 200th victory in the competition.
Wolves had recovered after conceding an early goal to take a 2-1 lead before Hasselbaink was brought on to replace Geremi on the hour. And after Lampard had equalised, the Dutchman took centre stage, putting us back in front with a 20-yard scorcher which made him the third foreign player to reach a century of Premier League goals, after Dwight Yorke and Thierry Henry.
He added two more in the final few minutes to seal the points and become the first Chelsea player to score a hat-trick after coming on as a substitute.
#300 – Birmingham City 0-1 Chelsea – 19 January 2008
Claudio Pizarro struggled for form during his lone season at Chelsea in 2007/08, when he scored only two goals in 32 games. However, Birmingham City would have been glad the see the back of the Peruvian striker as both of his strikes came against the Midlands side.
Having scored the Blues’ first goal of the season in our 3-2 win at the Bridge on the opening day, Pizarro struck again at St Andrews when he headed in a late winner to break down the resistance of the home side and bring up our 300th Premier League victory.
#400 – Chelsea 6-1 Queens Park Rangers – 29 April 2012
After showing tremendous resilience to come from behind with 10 men to beat Barcelona in the Champions League semi-finals, Roberto Di Matteo’s side showed another side of our game as we handed out a thumping in a west London derby five days later.
There were no signs of a hangover after the heroics at the Camp Nou as the Blues scored four goals in the first 25 minutes, with Daniel Sturridge opening the scoring after 45 seconds and John Terry heading in our second before Fernando Torres netted twice.
The Spaniard completed his only Chelsea hat-trick when he steered in our fifth after the interval and Florent Malouda notched our sixth with 10 minutes left in our biggest-ever win against our local rivals.
#500 – Crystal Palace 0-1 Chelsea – 17 December 2016
On a foggy afternoon at Selhurst Park, Chelsea matched a club record for consecutive league wins as we reached the 500-victory mark in the Premier League by edging Crystal Palace 1-0.
Having sat in eighth place in the table at the start of October, the Blues reeled off 10 straight wins before our visit to south London, where a Diego Costa header just before half-time secured another victory to send us nine points clear at the top.
While that run was eventually ended at 13 games, the momentum of that Chelsea side could not be slowed as we went on to win another league title.