For me, Diego Costa’s behaviour was normal, says Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho

Diego Costa cut a disconsolate, frustrated figure in the Premier League contest at White Hart Lane. (Source: AP)

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho hailed his team’s performance in Sunday’s goalless draw at Tottenham Hotspur as the best of the season yet spent most of his post-match press conference fielding questions about a man who did not even play.

Out-of-form Spanish striker Diego Costa cut a disconsolate, frustrated figure in the Premier League contest at White Hart Lane, starting the game on the substitutes’ bench with his boots in his hands and ending it by throwing his training bib in Mourinho’s direction.

Costa has failed to recapture last season’s sparkling form, scoring three goals in 11 league appearances this term.
Yet Mourinho played down suggestions that his relationship with Costa has broken down and that the striker’s attitude has become a cause for concern.

“If he wants to hurt me, it’s not (with) his bib,” Mourinho joked with reporters after the game.

“I was not expecting to have a player on the bench who was jumping and singing because they’re not playing. A top player going on the bench? They’re not happy. So for me, his behaviour was normal.”

Mourinho preferred to highlight the “fantastic” performance of Eden Hazard, who was Chelsea’s most creative and dangerous player and, in Costa’s absence, was deployed furthest up the pitch.

The Belgian international had Chelsea’s best chance half way through the second half, volleying a swinging Ivanovic cross goalward first time with his left foot, which Hugo Lloris tipped away for a corner with an agile dive.

Reigning champions Chelsea went into the match only four points above the relegation zone, so will view this as a platform from which to kick-start their stuttering league season. The draw lifts them one place to 14th.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next 10 matches we don’t lose one,” Mourinho said after the game.

For Spurs, the result was a missed opportunity to move up to fourth, but it stretched their unbeaten league run to 13 games, their best sequence since 1984-85.

Harry Kane, who had scored nine goals in six games, was kept quiet by Chelsea’s impressive central defensive partnership of Gary Cahill and Kurt Zouma.

Spurs’ manager Mauricio Pochettino said his side had the better chances and considered it two points dropped rather than one point gained.

“We had four shots on target, enough chances to score, and they only had one. Hazard. I think we deserved more,” he told reporters.