The irrepressible Costa levelled with a deflected but spectacular overhead bicycle kick after Branislav Ivanovic’s shot had been sent spinning in his direction.
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“It’s a bit hard to talk about the game because we lost two points”, Conte told Sky Sports. I want to have Diego Costa in all the games. “We are disappointed because the performance was very good in terms of our intensity and because we played good football”, the Italian coach said, as quoted on BBC Sport.
Diego Costa scored twice but could not prevent Chelsea losing their unblemished Premier League record in a controversial 2-2 draw at Swansea.
Gylfi Sigurdsson chased down a pass and got to the ball ahead of Thibaut Courtois, who was himself lucky to avoid being dismissed, and the Iceland worldwide blasted the ball down the middle to become Swansea’s record Premier League scorer.
“The second goal was a clear foul on Gary Cahill”.
The Belgian goalkeeper scrambled back, but could not prevent the ball crossing the line.
“After Chelsea’s first goal I saw my team not playing well and chose to change something before the end of the first half”, he said.
After taking the lead, the visitors remained equally impressive, with Fabianski saving well from Eden Hazard, who surged into a shooting position from just inside the Swansea half.
Swansea City 1 (Sigurdsson), Chelsea 0.
Chelsea responded instantly and should have doubled their lead, with Costa missing a far easier opening than the one he had converted earlier, shooting wide of an open goal from a Willian corner.
It was a huge goal too for Swansea after two successive defeats, and Guidolin earned credit for switching away from his 3-5-1-1 system before halftime, as well as apologising to Welsh worldwide Neil Taylor, who was annoyed at being taken off to facilitate the tactical change.
“Yes, yes, I apologise on the bench, and in the dressing-room”, said Guidolin. “He’s a good guy and he understood – there’s no problem between us”.
“I think this squad can play 3-4-3, not 3-5-2 like the national team in Italy and Juventus but, because of the characteristics of the players, we can play 3-4-3”.
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Leroy Fer, Federico Fernandez and Jordi Amat were all correctly cautioned for fouls from behind on Costa.
