Europa League final: See the facts as Chelsea and Arsenal rumble tonight

Chelsea and Arsenal make the journey east from London to Baku’s Olympic Stadium, where they have both previously won against local champions Qarabağ, to contest the first major European club competition final between two English clubs in 11 years, and only the third in UEFA history.

Here are the facts of tonight’s potential cracker:

• It is the third UEFA Europa League final between clubs from the same nation, the first having brought Portugal’s Porto a 1-0 win in Dublin against Braga in 2011 before Atlético Madrid defeated Athletic Club 3-0 in an all-Spanish encounter in Bucharest 12 months later.
• Chelsea are unbeaten in their 14 UEFA Europa League matches this term (W11 D3). They dominated Group L in the autumn before eliminating Malmö, Dynamo Kyiv, Slavia Praha and, on penalties, Eintracht Frankfurt to reach the final.
• Arsenal arrive in Azerbaijan on a five-match winning run in the competition. They cruised through to the knockout phase from Group E, dropping just two points and qualifying with two games to spare, but they had a scare in both the round of 32 and round of 16 against BATE Borisov and Rennes respectively before winning home and away in both the quarter-final against Napoli and the semi-final against Valencia.
• While Chelsea have already secured a berth in the 2019/20 UEFA Champions League group stage by finishing third in the Premier League, Arsenal’s fifth-place finish means they will qualify for next season’s UEFA Champions League only with victory in Baku.
• While the London rivals are familiar domestic opponents, they have been paired together just once before in UEFA competition. Chelsea got the better of Arsenal in the 2003/04 UEFA Champions League quarter-finals when they followed up a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge with a 2-1 comeback win at Highbury, left-back Wayne Bridge striking the decisive goal for Claudio Ranieri’s side three minutes from time.

• Although Chelsea were defeated on penalties by Manchester United in that most recent all-English final, the 2008 UEFA Champions League showpiece in Moscow (after a 1-1 draw), their overall UEFA competition record against fellow English opposition has yielded just four defeats in 17 encounters. Two of those came in their most recent tie, when they lost home (0-1) and away (1-2) to Manchester United in the 2010/11 UEFA Champions League quarter-finals.
• Arsenal have never won a UEFA competition match against another English club in six attempts (D2 L4), their last three all ending in defeat – at Liverpool in the second leg of their 2007/08 UEFA Champions League quarter-final (2-4) and in both legs of the following season’s semi-final against Manchester United (0-1 away, 1-3 home).