Giroud treble sends Chelsea into Europa League last eight
Olivier Giroud’s hat-trick helped Chelsea power their way into the Europa League quarter-finals with a 5-0 victory at Dynamo Kiev.
The French striker got his side off to a fine start in Ukraine when he opened the scoring with just five minutes gone, and helped himself to another before Marcos Alonso struck in first-half injury time.
Giroud completed his treble after the restart to take his tally in this year’s competition to nine goals in as many games, and there was still time for Callum Hudson-Odoi to extend his side’s advantage over the two legs to 8-0.
The Blues will be joined in the last eight by Arsenal, who overturned a 3-1 first-leg deficit to see off Rennes at the Emirates Stadium.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang struck twice either side of Ainsley Maitland-Niles’ 15thminute effort to hand the Gunners a 3-0 win on the night.
However, he later passed up a series of golden opportunities to add to his tally as the French side pressed, ultimately in vain, for a way back into the tie.
Valencia needed a lastgasp equaliser from substitute Goncalo Guedes to book their passage after Krasnodar threatened to pull off a shock in Russia.
Shapi Suleymanov had levelled the tie at 2-2, but with just seconds remaining, Guedes equalised on the night to edge the LaLiga side through.
Napoli had to survive a concerted fightback as Red Bull Salzburg slipped out of the competition despite winning 3-1 in Austria.
Arkadiusz Milik extended the visitors’ overall lead in the tie to 4-0 early on, but goals from Munas Dabour, Fredrik Gulbrandsen and Christoph Leitgeb reduced the deficit to 4-3.
Luka Jovic’s early strike dumped Inter Milan out as Eintracht Frankfurt edged their way to victory in Italy.
Jovic scored what proved to be the tie’s only goal to put the German side into the hat.
Goals from Gerard Moreno and Carlos Bacca handed Villarreal a 2-1 win over Zenit St Petersburg with Branislav Ivanovic’s stoppage-time effort making the aggregate score 5-2.
Slavia Prague midfielder Ibrahim Traore put paid to Sevilla’s hopes in a seven-goal thriller.
Wissam Ben Yedder’s penalty had cancelled out Michael Ngadeu-Ngadjui’s opener and Munir El Haddadi’s stunning volley repeated the feat following Tomas Soucek’s spot-kick after it as the tie went into extra-time.
Franco Vazquez headed Sevilla in front, only for Mick Van Buren to level and set the stage for Traore to make it 4-3 on the night and 6-5 on aggregate right at the death.
There was a late finish too in Lisbon as Benfica overturned Dinamo Zagreb’s narrow first-leg lead to progress.
Jonas’ 71st-minute goal was enough to take the tie into extra-time, during which Francisco Reis Ferreira made it 2-0, after Petar Stojanovic had been sent off for a second bookable offence, Alejandro Grimaldo made sure with a third.