Huge Stakes for Chelsea and Arsenal in Europa League Final

As prestigious as it aims to be, the Europa League final will always be the JV European cup final. You half expect the Champions League final winners to sarcastically tell their Europa League winners “Oh, look at you and your little trophy! That’s so cute!” 

That sensation seems to looms over this final, as Chelsea and Arsenal, teams that had envisioned bigger things at the start of the season, face off on Wednesday in Azerbaijan.

For these high-profile and heavily-financed English clubs, 2018-19 didn’t end up being the dream season either team imagined, especially with the unrealistically high expectations held by fans and pundits year in and year out. Chelsea did just enough at the end of the season to earn themselves third place in the Premier League and a place in next year’s Champions League. Arsenal, on the other hand, yet again pulled an Arsenal, drawing or losing games they should have won to drop to 5^thin the final standings, leaving a win in Wednesday’s clash as their last hope for a CL spot.

So, what storylines should we be watching as the game approaches? Let’s break it down.

• Who’s Not Playing: For Chelsea, midfielder N’Golo Kante suffered an injury in training, so he’ll join Antonio Rudiger and the pair of ruptured Achilles victims, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, on the sidelines. Combined, they accounted for 11 goals this season for Chelsea. For Arsenal, Aaron Ramsey, Denis Suarez, Hector Bellerin, and Rob Holding are all still unavailable to the team, while Armenian attacking midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan won’t join the team on their trip to Azerbaijan citing worries about his safety. Needless to say Arsenal fans are not happy with FIFA’s choice of venue.
• Farewell to Hazard: By all indications, it seem like this will be the last hurrah for Chelsea legend Eden Hazard, as he and Real Madrid have done everything but sign the papers on a deal. He hopes to add one last piece of hardware to the haul he’s helped Chelsea amass over the years.
• The Ban: It looks like bad news for Chelsea as the challenges to their upcoming two-window transfer ban continue to fail. With a Hazard exit and an inability to bring in new talent for an extended period, this might be one last chance to lift a trophy for a while.
• Champions League 2020: Chelsea’s in, Arsenal isn’t. For clubs like these, a spot in the CL is everything. With a win and they’re in, Arsenal has lots more to play for.

Now in terms of the actual game, and available betting opportunities, we’ve got a lot of stats to look at to predict what we’ll see come Wednesday.

• Defense, once a hallmark of each of these teams, has been less of a priority this year. Chelsea has the distinction of losing by the biggest margin in the league this year, a 0-6 thrashing at the hands of Man City in February. Arsenal, on the other hand, was 13^thin the league in number of clean sheets, with only 8 in 38 games played.
• No one will complain about the lack of goal scorers however. Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang (22 goals) and Alexandre Lacazette (13) made for the most prolific tandem in the Premier League this season, while Eden Hazard was a one-man wrecking machine, leading the league in combined goals (16) + assists (15). 
• Unai Emery seems to own the Europa League, and has won the competition, having won the competition 3 times with Sevilla from 2014-2016.

Chelsea (-134) are slight favorites to lift the trophy over Arsenal (+110), but the game is seen as so tight that we’ll have to look deeper to find chances to win some real money.

• Bet Builder is always a good way to combine odds to win bigger. Picking an Arsenal win with over 3.5 goals scored is at +800.
• Choosing the Exact Winning Margin in the Full Time Bet section is another great winning opportunity. Here too, an Arsenal win by 2 is at +800.
• You can wager that the king of the goals and assists, Eden Hazard, gets one of each at +1100.

There are over 100 different wagers you can place on this game, so head over to 888Sport and find the right one for you!