Arsenal v Qarabağ facts

Arsenal complete their UEFA Europa League Group E campaign with top spot already under lock and key and will hope to end it with a flourish in front of their own fans against an eliminated Qarabağ side who suffered their heaviest home European defeat on their last outing.

• As in their debut UEFA Europa League participation of 2017/18, Arsenal have qualified for the knockout phase as group winners. They have already matched their final tally of 13 points from last season, having won four and drawn one of their five matches, and have not conceded a goal since matchday one.

• Qarabağ have lost four of their five fixtures, the exception a 1-0 win at Vorskla Poltava on matchday four. They followed that by losing 6-1 at home to Sporting CP – a result that confirmed their elimination and leaves them at the foot of the Group E standings, level on points and head-to-head with Vorskla but with an inferior goal difference.

Previous meetings
• Arsenal's first meeting with a team from Azerbaijan ended with a 3-0 victory over Qarabağ in Baku on matchday two.

• That result means Qarabağ's five matches against English clubs have all ended in defeat. They have scored just one goal against Premier League opposition – a penalty in a 3-1 defeat by Arsenal's rivals Tottenham at their old White Hart Lane stadium in September 2015 – and conceded 17.

Form guide
Arsenal
• The Gunners finished sixth in the 2017/18 Premier League – their lowest final placing under Arsène Wenger in his swansong season as manager after 22 years. It earned them a second successive qualification for the UEFA Europa League group stage.

• UEFA Champions League ever-presents for 19 successive seasons until last term, Arsenal reached the UEFA Europa League semi-finals at the first attempt, going out to eventual winners Atlético Madrid.

• The Gunners' UEFA Europa League record in London is W5 D3 L1, with 22 goals scored and eight conceded, the 0-0 draw with Sporting on matchday four bringing them a first clean sheet in five such fixtures.

Qarabağ
• Champions of Azerbaijan for the fifth successive year in 2017/18, Qarabağ are also competing in a UEFA group stage for the fifth season running, three appearances in the UEFA Europa League preceding a landmark UEFA Champions League adventure last term. BATE Borisov blocked their route back into that competition this season, in the third qualifying round, but a UEFA Europa League play-off victory against FC Sheriff kept that sequence of group stage appearances going.

• Qarabağ have never extended a European campaign into the spring. Their away record in the UEFA Europa League group stage is W3 D1 L7, the three victories having all been by a 1-0 margin – against Dnipro in 2014/15, PAOK in 2016/17 and this season at Vorskla.

• Qarabağ have scored just three away goals in six European encounters this term but have lost only two of those matches, the 0-2 defeat at Sporting on matchday one being the only game in which they have conceded more than once themselves.

Links and trivia 
• Arsenal are on a run of four successive clean sheets in the competition – the longest sequence in this season's group stage. One more will equal the all-time UEFA Europa League record that is currently held jointly by Napoli and Salzburg. Eleven other clubs have managed four in a row, including fellow Premier League sides Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester United.

• Arsenal’s goals in the first game against Qarabağ came from Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Emile Smith Rowe and Matteo Guendouzi, none of whom had ever previously scored for the club.

• Qarabağ's Innocent Emeghara has played for Switzerland alongside Arsenal duo Stephan Lichtsteiner and Granit Xhaka.

The coaches
• After two years with Paris Saint-Germain that yielded seven domestic trophies, Unai Emery was appointed as Arsenal manager in May 2018, replacing the long-serving Wenger. The Spaniard oversaw Sevilla's historic hat-trick of successes in the UEFA Europa League from 2013/14 to 2015/16, having assumed control following a four-year tenure at Valencia and a brief stint at Spartak Moskva. He has been in charge of more UEFA Europa League games than any other coach, this being his 65th.

• Qarabağ coach Gurban Gurbanov is Azerbaijan's highest-scoring international with 12 goals in 64 matches. While he regularly changed club as a player, he celebrated ten years as head coach of Qarabağ in August 2018, during which time he has led the club to five successive national league titles, four Azerbaijani Cups and regular European group stage involvement, including a maiden UEFA Champions League adventure in 2017/18. He has doubled up as the coach of Azerbaijan since November 2017.