In a season where some have not been that impressed with Chelsea so far, that has certainly changed after the past couple of fixtures after the Blues waltzed past Claudio Ranieri’s Champions Leicester City 3-0 with a faultless display and this past Sunday Antonio Conte’s side simply dismantled Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United side 4-0. The blues were delighted to keep 2 clean sheets using 3 at the back in both games and are starting to look real title contenders sitting just 1 point behind the leaders.

On Sunday Chelsea relied upon Pedro, Cahill, Hazard and Kanté for the goals as the strikers were not needed. This has not been the case so far in the season however. The faith that Antonio Conte has shown in his number one striker has paid off handsomely so far as Diego Costa leads the Premier League with 7 league goals and 2 assists, sitting a goal ahead of Everton’s Romelu Lukaku in 2nd and 2 goals ahead of Arsenal’s Theo Walcott in 3rd. United’s suddenly cold Zlatan Ibrahimovic only has 4 goals and is tied for 6th with a host of other players.

So Antonio Conte certainly seems to be getting the best out of the undeniably talented Spanish striker of Brazilian decent and the boss is managing the striker’s somewhat fiery temperament rather well too. Costa only has 4 yellow cards so far with no red cards on the season. Costa too seems to be a little less petulant this season but has not lost his aggressive, in-your-face kind of play that means centre-halves facing him know they are in for a tough afternoon when they play against him.

Costa seems happier and more relaxed and this may in part be due to the return of David Luiz from PSG. Luiz seems to have a laugh with Costa and the two enjoy each other’s company, which is perhaps helping to keep the sometimes impetuous Costa on a more even keel.