Sokratis Papastathopoulos is the man who once had to be pulled away from Marko Arnautovic in a training ground fight in front of the television cameras at Werder Bremen and celebrated a tackle on Willian at the Emirates this season as if he just buried a free-kick from 30 yards.

The Greece international defender is a favourite at Arsenal and the Europa League final on Wednesday is a chance at the first major trophy in some time. At the age of 30 he has a Serie A winners medal with AC Milan from 2011, although he played a relatively minor role. He won the 2007-2008 Greek title at AEK Athens only for it later to be awarded to Olympiacos for reasons that Sokratis can only shrug about now.

He has embraced his role as a traditional defender, popular with English crowds and recalls fondly his team’s 2-0 win over Chelsea in January. “I remember it was a good game from us,” he says this week at the club’s training ground.

“We were much better than them. Chelsea has a good team - very good players - and we respect them. We are not afraid. It's one game. One final. We are happy to be there. We like to win. We want to play next year in the Champions League.