With 82 minutes gone of Saturday’s contest at Stamford Bridge, off he came to a chorus of approval and chants of, “Diego, Diego”.
Diego Costa may have mustered one shot on target but to all intents and purposes his afternoon’s work had been done.
The first-half flashpoint with Laurent Koscielny and then Gabriel Paulista had effectively sealed the contest for Chelsea.
– EPL: Zouma and Hazard punish nine-man Arsenal
– #360win: A trip to watch Bayern vs Dortmund
– RATE, SHARE & WIN: ValoraFutbol Fan Ratings
Gabriel was naive to react the way he did but sometimes you have to bow down to human nature and accept why he kicked out. In fact, as the Brazilian left the field somewhat aggrieved, the overriding thought going through his mind was probably, “why didn’t I kick him harder”.
After all, the punishment would have been the same.
Having spent the first-half of last season scoring goals at an impressive rate, Costa is now firmly settling into his role as Jose Mourinho’s pitbull on the field, his creator of chaos and destruction.
Gamesmanship doesn’t even tell the half of it. Wind him up and let him go. It’s no great surprise a soon-to-be released biography of the 26-year-old by Spanish journalist Fran Guillen is entitled ‘Diego Costa: The Art of War’.
As Sun Tzu wrote in 513BC, for which Guillen’s book borrows its title: “All warfare is based on deception,” and advised, “If your opponent is of choleric temperament, seek to irritate him.”
Give Diego Costa credit. He gets away with all this AND finds a way to get Gabriel sent off. https://t.co/BEhAQHW8RR
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) September 19, 2015
It’s unclear if Costa is a student of Sun Tzu (more likely Mourinho is) but he finished the game on Saturday without committing a single foul and clearly has the latter quote down to a tee; always in the ear of the opposition and the referee, little pulls and digs on defenders and shoves here and there.
He has become the snarling embodiment of Mourinho on the field, in using the dark arts to their fullest, and playing on the edge in order to gain a significant edge.
And why not? If the referees continue to allow it to happen – Costa has just one red card in 330 career matches for club and country – then why stop what has been a successful formula up to now?
What’s frustrating about it though is we don’t talk about Costa the brilliant No9 anymore, we discuss Costa the irritant, the pantomime villain.
And that’s why Chelsea fans cheered him so vociferously; probably more so than they would have done goalscorers Kurt Zouma or Eden Hazard had they been substituted. The more Costa annoys those outside the club, the more he becomes one of them.
But there is so much more to the Brazilian’s game and while we can love or hate him for this character he has now assumed, it would be so much more fulfilling if we could appreciate his goalscoring again.
For while his fitness appears to have returned somewhere close to his highest levels, his form emphatically has not. Just two goals in seven games is not a return befitting of his talents, reputation nor status as Chelsea’s leading striker.
Costa has it all to his game; big and strong with a brilliant first touch and array of skills. His finishing last season and in the previous campaign with Atletico Madrid was near-flawless.
So while Arsenal fell into his trap, and others will surely follow, eventually the act will grow tired and whether it be in the knockout stages of the Champions League or a key Premier League fixture later in the season against wiser defenders, Costa will have to start being more than a pain in the backside.
