In June, Chelsea manager Antonio Conte sent a text to top goalscorer Diego Costa telling the Spanish international he was no longer in Chelsea’s plans.

Costa has come out and his side of the story to the Daily Mail.

Diego offers the view that he was happy with the Blues and stated ‘I didn’t want to leave’ but that doesn’t quite fit the narrative that we’ve seen since his arrival in the summer of 2014.

He wanted to go back to Atletico Madrid after the end of his second season and then he was nearly lured to China in a big move back in January. His ill feeling with Conte seems to stem from that particular saga.

Now maybe the aggressive striker’s representatives wanted to use the interest from the Chinese Super League as leverage when discussing a new deal with the Blues hierarchy. If that were the case then it specularly backfired as Costa became distracted and a problem on the training ground.

The Chelsea negotiating team were instructed to break off any Costa contract talks and they never resumed.

Conte was smart and knew he had to eek more out of his forward and while the second half of the season wasn’t as fruitful as the first half was for the hitman, he still scored twenty Premier League goals and helped the club to the league title.

But as Diego became the orchestrator of the title winning party, Conte was ready to deliver the body blow that he knew was coming since January.

Now I don’t agree with the idea of sending a player a text to tell him he wasn’t wanted. I think Costa at least deserved a phone call and an explanation. Had he received it, I doubt he could really moan but this is Costa we are talking about and he can moan about anything it seems.

Now the twenty-eight year old forward just wants to be set free and once again he’s signalled his intention to re-join Atletico.

There’s a few problems with that.

Firstly, Chelsea won’t just set him ‘free’. They will want a good price for the strong, powerful and proven goalscorer. They’ll want at least £40m for someone possibly heading into their peak years. That’s actually quite a low price in this current market but they’ll want to relieve themselves of the massive headache that is Diego Costa.

The other issue is that Costa’s beloved Atletico can’t actually sign players during this window as they’ve received a transfer ban from FIFA. They cannot register new players until January 2018. So they aren’t in any rush to conclude a deal this summer unless another team shows interest and even then the forward himself will then have to show a similar interest in joining the potential suitor.

The Brazilian born player has returned to his homeland and is currently training alone in Brazil while staying with his parents.

He feels that the club have treated him terribly and he doesn’t want to return just to train with the reserves. That has led to Chelsea fining him repeatedly as he hasn’t returned for preseason.

I’m not sure we can feel sorry for Diego in this instance, he’s even talking about taking legal action.
If I were his lawyer I’d have advised him not to take any interviews and not to post silly social media videos on a jet ski with a dog!

In the interview Costa basically slags off his manager. He says Conte ‘lacks charisma’ and after praising Antonio for being a ‘great coach’ he the stated he doesn’t respect him as a man and that he’s very cold.

Diego also went on to say that specific players contact him regularly and tell him that he’s missed at Stamford Bridge.

To make these comments public could be seen as bringing the club into disrepute and he might have broken certain confidentially clauses that will be in his contract. Let’s not forget that Chelsea Chairman Bruce Buck is also a bonafide lawyer!

As for the jet ski video, it may be humorous but it’s not exactly portraying the image of a hard done by footballer is it?

Now I am not a huge fan of players being banished from the first team and sent out to train by themselves but I have no problem with them being sent to train with the reserves or the youngsters.

Why should it be an issue for Costa?

He will still get a weekly wage of £150,000. He also gets the chance to improve younger players and give something back to the club. He can change the situation and make it a positive and then you’ll be more attractive to a buyer.

All in all, it’s very hard to give a flying fart about a man who can afford to sit at home and not pick up  your wage. Especially when he’s been trying to engineer a move away for quite some time now.

I love Diego Costa the footballer. He’s a warrior and will give his all on the pitch, sometimes he gives too much. But in this situation I think he’s played the wrong hand because I can’t see many thinking he’s a victim in all this!

Posted on August 14th, 2017 by scott
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