Chelsea humbled Arsenal 4-1 in the Europa League final at Baku to win another European competition.
Eden Hazard scored a brace, while Olivier Giroud and Pedro added to the Blues’ scoreline. Alex Iwobi restored some hope for the Gunners but it wasn’t enough.
The opening half-hour of the game was cagey, but Arsenal took control of it as the half progressed. Sead Kolasinac started finding space on the left-hand side, stretching the Chelsea midfield and forcing Pedro to track back.
However, the Bosnian couldn’t really supply good crosses into the box. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had one half-chance when Kepa parried the ball straight at him, but the Gabonese couldn’t sort his feet out.
Granit Xhaka had an effort from range skimming the crossbar to emphasize the Gunners’ dominance in the game.
Just before half-time though, things began shifting in favour of Chelsea and Giroud had an attempt on goal well-saved by Petr Cech.
The Frenchman did find the net four minutes into the second half when he came at the end of Emerson’s cross and glanced his header in at the bottom-right corner.
Maurizio Sarri’s men doubled the lead at the hour mark when a poor pass from Ainsley Maitland-Niles was cut off by Mateo Kovacic, who then found Hazard in the box.
The Belgian was clever to drop a shoulder and find Pedro free. The Spaniard put his foot through the ball to score.
It became 3-0 before you know it when Maitland-Niles made a wrong challenge from behind on Giroud in the box. The referee had no choice but to give the penalty away.
Hazard stepped up and slotted his spot-kick past Cech without much fuss.
In the 70th minute, Chelsea failed to clear an Arsenal free-kick and Iwobi struck a half-volley from 25 yards into the back of the net to instil some hope to his side.
That was removed two minutes later when Giroud chipped in a clever ball towards Hazard for finishing towards the bottom corner.
All in all, mature performance from Chelsea, who looked in control of the game after a brief period of dominance from Arsenal.
Here’s how their fans reacted after such a good result:
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