Diego Costa will play for Chelsea
against Premier League champions
Manchester City this weekend
despite not being 100 percent fit,
manager Jose Mourinho said on
Friday.
The £32 million Brazil-born Spain striker, who has
scored seven goals in four Premier League games
since joining from Atletico Madrid, is struggling with
a hamstring injury and played only a bit-part in
Wednesday's Champions League draw against
Schalke 04 at Stamford Bridge.
"Diego is not in the best condition but he will start
the game," Mourinho told reporters on Friday. "He
plays this game, he won't play against Bolton (in the
League Cup), and he plays against Aston Villa. Let's
see his evolution.
"The medical department are doing their best, the
player is fantastic in trying to play and being
available for the team. We have to try to protect him
until he gets completely fit."
Veteran striker Didier Drogba, back at Chelsea for a
second spell after scoring 157 in his first, is in no
doubt that Costa is now the main man at Stamford
Bridge.
"Diego is the striker we needed this season," he
said. "When I look at him, I can see the desire to
win every challenge, to score goals. He's hungry for
goals and that's the best thing for a team like us."
Even with a misfiring forward line last season,
Chelsea managed to win at City, although ultimately
Mourinho's side stumbled in the title run-in.
After adding the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Filipe Luis
and Loic Remy to their ranks during the summer,
Chelsea look a perfectly-balanced side this season
and with four straight Premier Leaguewins look like
being the most serious threat to City's hopes of
retaining the title.
Yet Mourinho said the importance of Sunday's
clash at The Etihad should not be blown out of
proportion.
"It's one more game, three more points," Mourinho
said. "Obviously when matches are between title
contenders every point makes a difference.
"Last weekend Arsenal and City got one point each,
nobody got three. These matches in the end can be
important, but if you analyse with a simple
pragmatic view it's one game, three points, no more
than that.
"For the title it's not just City, there are other teams
in this race. Other clubs have exactly the same
ambition.
"Last season we had the experience and we know
what it is to win there and to lose there. I'm not
exhaustively going through every second of these
two matches with the players.
"Last season is last season; statistics belong to
history, not to the future. What happened last year
has no relation to this season. Can we go there and
win like we did last season? Obviously we can. But
we can also lose."
Victory would be Mourinho's 164th in charge of
Chelsea, equalling Dave Sexton's total and leaving
him behind only Dave Calderhead on the all-time
list.
Points and prizes are all Mourinho craves though.
"Numbers are no more than history. I'm totally
focused on three points and the Premier League in
2015, rather than history and a certain number of
victories," he said.
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