Chelsea roll on as Costa is urged to apologise
Diego Costa was urged to apologise by his Chelsea team-mates ahead of their 3-0 victory over champions Leicester City for the bust-up that has cast a shadow over the club’s Premier League title bid.
As revealed by The Telegraph, Costa was dropped for the vital trip to Leicester after a row with a Chelsea fitness coach and head coach Antonio Conte on the back of a huge offer from China.
Costa was told to train away from the rest of the squad for three days after the row and did not travel with the squad to Leicester.
But that has not stopped Costa’s team-mates trying to act as peacemakers by telling the striker to say sorry for the incident and ignore the interest from China – at least until the summer.
Costa has been told that he will regret his actions and that he should concentrate on firing Chelsea to the title, and then reassess his future in the summer if he is still unhappy.
There was an encouraging sign that Costa may be listening to the advice late on Friday night, as he posted a picture on Instagram with the message ‘Come on Chelsea’. The message was instantly ‘liked’ by Chelsea captain John Terry and Cesc Fabregas, two of the men who have been working hard to try to make Costa see sense.
Chelsea hope the situation can still be resolved and Costa is likely to hold talks with Conte early next week, with owner Roman Abramovich adamant the 28-year-old will not be sold this month.
The club want to find a way in which Costa can be reintegrated into the team without being ostracised by the fans and in his post-match press conference Conte refused to discuss the row.
Costa received an offer worth £30 million-a-year net at the start of this month from a Chinese club, thought to be Tianjin Quanjian, that would make him one of the best-paid players in the world. Chelsea believe that was the trigger for his bust-up, with more detail emerging over what
happened. Costa is understood to have become involved in a row with a Chelsea fitness coach in training on Tuesday with Conte backing his staff. The situation then became worse on Wednesday as Conte furiously shouted ‘go to China’ at the end of another heated exchange.
Conte made Costa train on his own, later than the rest of the squad, for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday which explains why the Spain international posted an Instagram video of himself walking around a deserted Cobham in the dark with snow on the ground.
Asked directly if he had a row with Costa, Conte said: “I think I have read a lot of speculation about this topic. I can tell if there are problems – and I repeat ‘if ’ – with players, I am used to solving them in the changing rooms, not outside, not in press conferences.” Asked whether the club had received an offer from China for Costa, he added: “I don’t know anything about this, no.”
He did not deny there had been a rift between him and the club’s top goalscorer this season. “If you want to know the truth, I’m ready to tell the truth. On Tuesday during the training session Diego stopped because he felt a pain in his back. From that moment he didn’t train during the week.