Chelsea demolished local rivals Arsenal 4-1 to win the Europa League and ensure that Emery’s men will be playing Europa League football next season.
Everyone knew that the atmosphere inside the 68,000 capacity stadium in Baku was going to be poor due to the fact that only 12,000 tickets were allocated to Arsenal and Chelsea fans, but nobody expected the football on show to be just as poor.
In fact, in the first 45 minutes the only things that got the real fans off their seat was a half-hearted penalty appeal by Arsenal and an Olivier Giroud effort from just outside the box that Petr Cech did well to get a couple of fingertips to. The rest, well, put it this way, you wouldn’t have missed anything if you fell asleep.
The game finally got the goal that it needed in the 48th minute when Olivier Giroud’s diving header found the bottom corner of Cech’s goal. You would have thought that this would wake Arsenal up a bit, but it was like they were treating this game like a pre-season friendly.
They were punished on the hour mark when Eden Hazard found Rodriguez Pedro in the box, who subsequently found the bottom corner with a left-footed shot.
Things got even more embarrassing for Emery’s men five minutes later when Giroud was adjudged to have been fouled in the box and Hazard converted from the spot.
Arsenal thought they had a glimmer of hope when Alex Iwobi scored a peach of a goal in the 69th minute, but just three minutes later Hazard scored his second of the night after some great link up play with Giroud.
Chelsea pushed for a fifth goal, but some fine saves from Cech kept the score to four.
Here are our Chelsea player ratings for tonight’s final:
