Diego Costa is a man who lives life on the edge. We all know that.
[ MORE: Mourinho masterclass ]
Those with a keen eye would have spotted that during Chelsea’s 3-0 win against Leicester City on Saturday the Spanish international was gesturing towards to the bench to be substituted.
According to the Daily Mail Costa was gesturing for Conte to take him off if he didn’t feel he was doing a good enough job as the Italian manager continued to bark orders at Costa from the sidelines. Costa took that as Conte being upset with the performance of his striker and apparently made it known afterwards that he wasn’t happy with the constant instructions from his manager.
Speaking after the game Conte laughed off the incident, stating that Costa was on four yellow cards and didn’t want to get another and miss the huge home game against Manchester United on Sunday (Watch live, 11 a.m. ET on NBCSN and online via NBC Sports).
Per the report, Costa has been warned about his conduct towards Conte and his coaching staff.
Both of these individuals are extremely passionate men and from time to time their views may collide. When you throw into the mix that Costa is currently on a tear -- he’s scored seven goals in eight PL games for Chelsea this season and 10 in 12 games including internationals -- and rumors persisting that Conte tried to sign Alvaro Morata, along with several other strikers this summer, Costa is perhaps feeling braver than usual to prove a point that he’s indispensable to this Chelsea team.
133 - Diego Costa has the best minutes per goal ratio for Chelsea in PL history (min. 10 goals), scoring every 133 minutes. Menace. pic.twitter.com/DqavIDxFZ2
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) October 18, 2016
He is very important, don’t get me wrong, but Conte is not the kind of coach who puts an individual first over the team.
The Italian is a ruthless and single-minded man and if there was the reported clash with Costa then the Spaniard will need to tread carefully to stay in Conte’s good books.
Eating humble pie doesn’t appear to be something Costa’s good at, so maybe he and Conte can just agree they’re fiery characters and sometimes their passion gets the better of them. Undermining the manager is never a good idea though. Especially when Conte is your boss.