Conte pours oil on Blues’ troubled waters

DIEGO Costa will return to the Chelsea squad ahead of the Premier League leader’s game with Hull City at Stamford Bridge today, manager Antonio Conte has revealed.

The 28-year-old missed last weekend’s win at Leicester City with a back injury following reports of a bust-up with Conte and his coaching staff. The fallout also came after a Chinese Super League club had been reportedly linked with the Brazilborn Spain international.

Conte said: “Yes. He’s available for the game against Hull City. He restarted having training sessions on Tuesday with the rest of the team.

“I think the player wants to stay at Chelsea. He’s very happy to play with us. This idea [to move] is far from his mind.”

Conte refused to directly address questions over the reported argument and would not confirm if he met with Costa individually this week.

And the Italian insisted Costa trained on his own on Sunday and Monday, while his teammates had time off, to be in the right physical condition to rejoin first-team training on Tuesday.

Conte said: “After the game against Leicester I told you the truth and I repeat: I heard a lot of speculation about Diego.

“But now the most important thing is he trained with us this week and the most important thing is he hasn’t pain in his back.

“He’s available to come back in our squad against Hull City.”

Conte did confirm Chelsea are considering an offer from Bournemouth for second-choice goalkeeper Asmir Begovic, back-up to Thibaut Courtois.

Conte said: “There is this offer. The club and I are evaluating this offer.”

Meanwhile, fourth-placed Arsenal — eight points behind Chelsea — have no margin for error when they entertain Burnley today.

They are one of many clubs to have long been linked with a move for West Ham’s want-away star Dimitri Payet, but they have now moved to sign him.

Arsenal are one of many clubs to have been linked with Dimitri Payet, but they have now moved to sign him

Payet is desperate to leave the London Stadium after deciding he has outgrown the club, having been one of the players of the tournament at Euro 2016 last summer.

He agreed a new five-year deal at the club last February, making him the highest-paid player in West Ham’s history, earning £125 000 a week, but he is claiming he has a back injury and isn’t currently involved with the first team.

According to reports in the Daily Star, Arsenal have now made their move and opened talks with West Ham to sign the midfielder, who is rated at £35-million.

Arsenal are losing the race to signing Schalke defender Sead Kolisinac, say the Italian press, with Juventus currently at the front of the queue for the tough-tackling leftback.

There is also talk that the Gunners will go head-to-head with Everton for the signing of Olympique Lyon’s Algerian forward Rachid Ghezzal.

The 24-year-old is out of contract in the summer and Ronald Koeman is keen, but AS Monaco, Atletico Madrid, Valencia and AC Milan are all interested, according to Sport Witness. In addition, Juventus are set to offer wonderkid Moise Kean a new contract to stave off Arsenal.

According to TalkSPORT, the 16-year-old is a top target for Arsene Wenger and the Italian giants are well aware of the interest, but they have no intention of losing him and are keen to tie down his future.

Something that will worry Wenger is the news that Juventus are lining up a bid for Alexis Sánchez.