Man Utd and Tottenham set up third all-English Europa League final showdown

The Europa League trophy will be heading for England this season after Manchester United and Tottenham booked a final showdown in Bilbao on May 21.

It will be the third time two English sides have battled it out for the silverware in the competition, formerly known as the UEFA Cup.

Here, the PA news agency takes a look at the two previous occasions on which the nation provided both finalists.

Wolves 2 Tottenham 3 (on aggregate), 1972

The inaugural UEFA Cup final saw the teams which had finished fourth and third in the First Division a season earlier go head to head over two legs in what proved to be a tight affair.

Spurs boss Bill Nicholson had a star-studded squad at his disposal with World Cup winner Martin Peters, Pat Jennings, Joe Kinnear, Alan Mullery, Mike England, Martin Chivers and Alan Gilzean starting both games.

The north London club emerged from their trip to Molineux on May 3 with a priceless 2-1 advantage courtesy of England striker Chivers’ second-half double – a header and a later piledriver – with Jim McCalliog replying in a game refereed by Azerbaijan’s Tofiq Bahramov, the “Russian linesman” who awarded England’s controversial third goal in the 1966 World Cup final.

But it was skipper Mullery whose header from a Peters free-kick at White Hart Lane ultimately secured victory, with Dave Wagstaffe’s equaliser handing the visitors a 1-1 draw on the night, but nothing more.

With the Europa League by now long established, Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea and Unai Emery’s Arsenal met at Baku’s Olympic Stadium to battle it out for European glory.

Emery headed for Azerbaijan with an astonishing record in the competition – he had lifted the trophy in three successive seasons during his spell at Sevilla and would go on to win it again with Villarreal – but it was Chelsea’s Belgian superstar Eden Hazard who left his mark on the game.

In his final appearance before leaving for Real Madrid, Hazard scored his side’s third and fourth goals after Olivier Giroud and Pedro had put them 2-0 ahead, and although Alex Iwobi had pulled one back between the Belgium international’s 65th-minute penalty and his second, the die was cast.

Within weeks, Italian Sarri had left Chelsea to take over at Juventus, while current Aston Villa boss Emery was sacked by the Gunners in the November of the same year and the club’s wait for a first European trophy since their 1994 Cup Winners’ Cup success is ongoing.