Europa League Final

If you ask any Chelsea fan ‘how’s the season been?’, you’d be likely to find ‘turbulent’ and ‘difficult’ among the expletives – and yet, here they are in another European final, four days short of the anniversary of last year’s Champions League triumph in Munich. Extraordinarily, they will officially hold both European trophies at the same time should they overcome their Portuguese opponents, Benfica, in Amsterdam. What their London rivals would give for such an awful season, eh?

The Blues managed to beat tonight’s opponents twice last season on their march to Germany and, while the Eagles have marked time since, the prize money from last term’s sojourn has seen the team from SW6 improve their ranks – particularly in the shape of the mercurial Eden Hazard. If all was fair and straightforward in this game, interim-manager Rafa Benitez would be presenting European football’s second-tier trophy to owner Abramovich as a leaving present, but this is football and we all know anything can happen…