Chelsea to line up Morata as a replacement for Costa
STRIKER MAY BE BACK TRAINING BUT CONTE ALREADY THINKING AHEAD
iego Costa has returned to Chelsea’s first-team training but head coach Antonio Conte has already identified Alvaro Morata as his preferred long-term successor.
Conte and Costa put last week’s bust-up behind them as the striker declared himself fit to rejoin first-team training and attempt to win his place back.
But, as reported by The Daily Telegraph, the truce is set to be temporary, with Costa expected to leave at the end of the season. Conte tried to sign Morata last summer when Costa wanted to go back to Atletico Madrid. Chelsea will now attempt to line up the Real Madrid man for a move to England once again. Tianjin Quanjian have confirmed they made an offer for Costa, which was worth £30 million-a-year (Dh135.6 million) net and turned the Spain international’s head, but also confirmed that Chelsea would not sell their top scorer until the end of the season. Tianjin owner Shu Yuhui has suggested his club cannot wait until the summer, but there will be plenty of Chinese interest in Costa and Atletico could launch another bid to take him back to Spain. It can, of course, only be seen as a coincidence that Costa has returned to full training just a day after the Chinese Football Association confirmed an amendment to its competition rules to limit spending on foreign players. Costa had not trained with the Chelsea first-team squad since Tuesday of last week, when he complained of back pain that sparked a row with fitness coach Julio Tous and then Conte.
Training alone
The 28-year-old trained alone on Sunday and Monday but, having been assessed by medical staff Tuesday morning, was back with Conte and the squad for an afternoon session as they prepared for Sunday’s game against Hull City at Stamford Bridge. He even shared a conciliatory embrace with Tous. Conte will spend this week assessing Costa’s fitness, attitude and state of mind before deciding whether to put him back into his starting line-up, but will offer the player no guarantees after Eden Hazard, Pedro Rodriguez and Willian performed well against Leicester City. Revealing a meeting with Costa’s agent, Jorge Mendes, Tianjin chief Shu said: “I made an appointment with Mendes and he came to my hometown to visit me. At that time, we were interested in signing Costa. “PSG told us Cavani would only be allowed to leave in June, even though the player himself was willing to join us. The same can be said for Costa, because Chelsea would only let him leave in June. However, the new season of the Chinese Super League will almost reach the halfway stage in June, we can’t wait so long.” A change in the rules means Chinese clubs will only be able to field three foreign players per game when the new season starts. “This situation has brought a change to our signing plans,” said Shu. “We continue to wait and suffer, but at the end of the day we’ll get someone. We have targeted a lot of strikers, and made an offer for [Karim] Benzema, but with this policy change, we are very helpless.”