A top player going on the bench?
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“If he wants to hurt me it would not be with a bib”. “It’s always hard to play at Tottenham… but I think a draw is a good result”, Hazard said.
Costa led Chelsea’s title charge last season, however, with the Blues struggling to hit any sort of form, the striker has looked a shadow of his former self and was dropped by Mourinho for yesterday’s 0-0 draw against Tottenham at White Hart Lane.
“I think it’s also normal”.
“I think Diego is very privileged”. Mourinho will be grateful for a fourth Premier League clean sheet of the season, particularly in the absence of captain John Terry (ankle) and at a venue where Chelsea lost 5-3 on New Year’s Day. I kept him in the team for all these matches and today we thought the best strategy to play was this one.
“It’s not easy. We are one of the younger teams in the Premier League”.
The Portuguese tactician insisted he has no problems with Costa, but called on the Spain global to start reading the game properly.
“Physically Diego is fine”.
“I was tempted to go the 90 minutes with the same players”.
Former Chelsea manager Ruud Gullit believes Hazard is being asked to do too much defensive work by Mourinho, when he should be concentrating on scoring and creating.
Costa is likely to return to Chelsea’s starting line-up when they face relegation-threatened Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, with Mourinho targeting an unbeaten run in their next 10 matches.
After Chelsea’s 0 – 0 draw at Tottenham, Scholes lambasted Costa, saying he is only good at fighting.
Costa’s sulk was the latest sign of tension between him and Mourinho, coming just a few days after their bust-up during Chelsea’s 4-0 Champions League win at Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Hazard said: “There was a lot of movement with small passes between us. I’m convinced at the end of December we’ll be in a different position to where we are now and we will shorten clearly the distance to the top teams”.
“We have the confidence to win any game if we have the same mentality we have now”.
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“The game went in the direction we wanted to take, we had a very good period in the first half where we should score, and in the second half we had a couple of chances and one of them is a giant chance”.
