Football Rewind HATS OFF TO DUTCH WONDER
Leicester 3 Arsenal 3 Heskey 84 Bergkamp 9, 61, 90+3 Elliott 90 + 2 Walsh 90 + 7 PL, Filbert St, Aug 27, 1997 Att: 21,089 BY POSSIBLY the best-ever Premier League hat-trick came in a match that is also remembered for a 97th-minute equaliser and a postmatch punch-up.
The tabloids had wondered whether Dennis Bergkamp was worth the club record £7.5million Arsenal had invested in him.
The arrival of Arsene Wenger as manager brought the best out of the Dutchman.
Bergkamp helped the Gunners to third place in 1996-97 and was soon into his stride the following season, scoring twice in a 3-1 win at Southampton that left Arsenal with seven points after three games.
Leicester had the same haul – but Arsenal took charge under the Filbert Street floodlights.
After nine minutes, the unmarked Bergkamp swept a right-foot shot from the edge of the area high into the net from Marc Overmars’ corner.
It was a jaw-dropping strike, but as team-mate Lee Dixon said: “It wasn’t that big a surprise. He scored that type of goal every day in training.”
The second goal did not come until the 61st minute and, again, it was Bergkamp. Patrick Vieira laid a pass to the Dutchman on the counterattack, Bergkamp nudged the ball away from his marker, then lifted it over keeper Kasey Keller for 2-0.
A teenage Emile Heskey bundled in an 84th-minute Leicester reply and, incredibly, the Foxes were level in injury time after Matt Elliott’s shot from the edge of the area.
Elliott was left scratching his head by Bergkamp’s brilliance seconds later. David Platt lifted a pass over Elliott and as the ball sailed towards him, Bergkamp quickly thought through what he planned to do. “It’s like solving a puzzle,” he said later.
Then he executed what Wenger would call “the perfect goal”.
He took one touch to control the ball, another to cut inside Elliott and a third to settle himself before firing into the top corner. Steve Walsh headed an equaliser in the 97th minute before a clash with Ian Wright after the final whistle (Bergkamp remonstrating, left).