Chelsea won’t dwell on Costa in battle with struggling Hull
>> LONDON: Chelsea will bid to put the Diego Costa crisis behind them when the Premier League leaders host Hull tomorrow.
Blues striker Costa reportedly clashed with Chelsea boss Antonio Conte last week over the club’s treatment of his back injury.
Amid reports that Costa was also the subject of a lucrative offer from Chinese Super League club Tianjin Quanjian, Conte kept his players focused as they crushed Leicester 3-0 last weekend despite the absence of the Spain striker.
With Chelsea refusing to consider selling their leading scorer, Conte appears to have smoothed any troubled waters and Costa returned to full training this week.
Conte has refused to acknowledge there was even a dispute with Costa, but it will be instructive to see if he restores the notoriously volatile star to his starting line-up with so much at stake in the title race.
Hull haven’t beaten Chelsea since 1988, but Tigers goalkeeper Eldin Jakupovic says the third bottom team are a more dangerous unit under new boss Marco Silva.
“He gives us confidence. We have to play our football. That’s sometimes difficult in the Premier League but he’s doing a good job and the players have been doing a good job,” Jakupovic said.
Meanwhile, Leicester City midfielder Danny Drinkwater said the Foxes can still finish in the top half of this season’s Premier League after a feeble start to their title defence.
Leicester have failed to build on last season’s fairytale title triumph and, despite a fine Champions League campaign, the Foxes are languishing in 15th in the standings after 21 games, five points ahead of the bottom three.
Leicester travel to face 13th placed Southampton tomorrow.
“We knew what we achieved was unbelievable and something that probably won’t happen again. But we needed to set a new target and hopefully reach it — and the target is still there to reach,” Drinkwater said.