Chelsea thrashed neighbours Arsenal 4-1 at Baku to claim their third European title since the turn of the decade.

Oliver Giroud opened the scoring in the second half after his header off Emerson’s pass beat Petr Cech at the near-post. Pedro Rodriguez doubled their lead 10 minutes later, before Eden Hazard scored from the spot to make it 3-0.

Alex Iwobi stole one back for the Gunners in the 69^th minute but Hazard killed the tie by completing his brace just three minutes later.

We take a look at the part he played in making it happen.

Key-stats

Goals: 4

Goals conceded: 1

Possession: 50.1%

Pass success rate: 86%

Shots: 14

30-second report

Chelsea started in their traditional 4-3-3 with star-man Hazard allowed positional freedom in the final third. Their defensive line was high but susceptible to quick breaks. However, the back-line did very well to thwart any danger thrown their way.

Arsenal lined-up in a 4-2-3-1 with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang patrolling the wings to make the best use of his pace. The Gunners were the more dangerous side in the first half but a sturdy Chelsea back-line coupled with their nervous front-line failed to make it count.

There were hardly any tactical nuances in the game and the team that committed fewer mistakes walked away with the trophy.

Tactical talking point – The gamble that paid

Maurizio Sarri took a small gamble on Chelsea’s defensive shape in order to allow greater positional flexibility for Hazard.

Emerson played higher than usual, disguising as a left-winger at times. This meant that Hazard was not forced to hug the touch-line and hence fledge his creative wings. The Belgian adopted a narrower role, ensuring that most of Chelsea’s attacks flowed through him.

Emerson had the liberty of exploiting the one-dimensional space ahead of him. The Brazil-born defender had his productive moments in attack, the most crucial arriving in the 49^th minute when he provided Giroud for Chelsea’s opener.

Hazard too benefited with this, as demonstrated by his assist to Pedro for Chelsea’s second and his crucial dribble that led to Giroud winning the penalty ahead of their third strike.

Chelsea’s fourth was also scored by the Belgian from a rather central position, again aided by the positional flexibility provided to him.

It’s worth noting that this move to distort the defensive shape to add more flexibility up-front arrived with a risk. In the first half, Arsenal were the team with the better chances, most of which arrived from the acres of space left by Emerson.

Gunners right-back Maitland-Niles drilled some good crosses into the box but inefficiency in the final third prevented Unai Emery’s men from taking the lead.

With David Luiz refusing to stretch the back-line by playing narrow, Arsenal were left with a lot of space to exploit and to their credit, they did do a good job.

With things leaning the other way, Sarri could have opted to revert to a more conservative approach, but his stubbornness paid off quite brilliantly in the second half.

Verdict

Sarri won his first trophy in the 29^th year of his managerial career and he achieved it in Sarri-esque fashion. Known for his stubbornness and the commitment to his style of play, it deemed fit that his style finally bore fruit.

The Italian did not attempt anything outrageous, kept things simple and took his team all the way to yet another Europa League title.

His tactics paid off, the players performed well and there’s not much that can be held against Sarri after such an emphatic win.

Rating: 8/10