In quite a staggering story considering the season Chelsea and Diego Costa are having so far this campaign, reportedly the Spanish striker desperately wants to leave Chelsea. The player has had numerous incidents and issues with the powers of the Premier League in the past and has also fallen foul of club rules on occasion but things seemed to have changed for the better this season as the striker was letting his football do the talking on the field of play.

Seemingly Costa was left out of the starting XI for the Leicester game due to a bad back he suffered in training last Tuesday. Apparently Costa fell out with Chelsea coach, Julio Tous over his fitness and as he had not trained in 3 days the decision was made for him to rest and recuperate rather than travel to Leicester. Chelsea went on to win the game comfortably sweeping aside Leicester City with ease by a 3-0 score with Marcos Alonso scoring a fine brace and Pedro adding a sweet third goal proving that Chelsea are quite capable of winning without Costa.

The Brazilian born Costa is under contract at Chelsea until the summer of 2019 but it is well documented that he has failed to settle into British life and his behaviour which has been very good under Conte so far seems to suddenly be deteriorating rapidly. Conte had a pretty big argument with Pedro on the field vs Tottenham in their previous Premier League match and then this week the striker had a big falling out on the training ground with one of the Chelsea coaches – Julio Tous. Naturally Antonio Conte wanted to talk about the result and performance after the Leicester game yesterday but did say this in relation to Costa as reported by The Sun :

“Diego was training on Tuesday and felt a pain in his back. He didn’t train during the week and for this reason he was unavailable today.”

“I don’t know how long it will take, I don’t have his pain,” said Conte. “We’ll see about this next week.”

The report goes on to say that Costa and his people began exploring the possibility of a move to China back in November. The report states that ridiculously-rich Chinese Super League club Tianjin Quanjian are ready to table an extraordinary bid of £80million to Chelsea to acquire the services of the striker. Costa himself would get a tax-free annual salary of £30million as well as receiving a rather sweet £5million ‘golden hello’ as it is known. A Chinese source said: “Costa is the No 1 target and we know that he wants to come here. The personal terms have been agreed in principle.  But Chelsea are adamant they do not want to sell at least until the end of their season.”

As the BBC reported, from Chelsea’s point of view when Antonio Conte was asked about Costa’s future at Stamford Bridge, the manager said,

“I can’t be concerned about this because today my players produced a great performance and showed spirit. I can’t be concerned with nothing.”

And asked if he would play for the Blues again Conte said, “Why not?”

He added: “There are lot of ‘if’ questions – I don’t like to answer these types of questions.”

In regards to the rumours emanating from China, Conte told BBC Sport: “I don’t know and the club doesn’t know anything about the reports of Costa to China. The truth is what I told you before.”

Left-back Marcos Alonso, who scored twice against Leicester, said: “You guys [journalists] made up the story. Diego wasn’t feeling well because of his back. He’s very happy and will have a great season at Chelsea.”

So it seems rather strange for Costa to be so heavily linked with a move to China especially after the striker admitted when speaking earlier this month that he wanted to leave Chelsea after last season but was now happy to stay working under new boss Conte. As a result the Blues had been optimistically trying to put together a contract extension with the naturalised Spaniard but following the bust-up with fitness coach Julio Tous last week everything is suddenly in serious doubt. Costa has reportedly confided in friends that he will do whatever it takes to engineer a move in the current transfer window — stating he “hates English football and hates the FA”.

This story just seems so strange given the season the Blues are having, the super season Diego Costa himself is having plus the prestigious club we are talking about therefore Chelsea fans will be hoping that Costa and Chelsea can get back on the same page and continue to perform at their League leading levels and win the Premier League plus sign Costa to a long-term extension.