Chelsea’s Diego Costa: I need to be ‘extra careful’ after stamping ban

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/feb/26/chelsea-diego-costa

Version 0 of 1.

Diego Costa believes his reputation precedes him in English football, provoking greater scrutiny from officials and pundits, and the Spain forward admits he must be “extra careful” in the wake of his recent three-match ban for stamping.

The Brazil-born striker maintains he did not intentionally tread on Liverpool’s Emre Can in the second leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final, an offence for which he was punished retrospectively by the Football Association. Yet he will go into Sunday’s final against Tottenham Hotspur still experiencing the ramifications of that incident and, while he refuses to change his natural game, he has suggested he has effectively become a target.

“I’m not going to change my way of playing,” said Costa, whose 17 goals for Chelsea have all come in the Premier League. “I do know now that I have to be a little bit more careful because it’s not the same when I do something as when someone else does it. Something I do, it’s talked about much more than another player. I have to be extra careful but I’m never going to change the way I play. That’s what got me here, that’s the way I play.”

The striker, a £32m arrival from Atlético Madrid last summer, has been booked eight times this season, though only once since mid-December, but has quickly established himself as integral at Chelsea as the focus of the forward line. There was a flurry of early goals though he has now not scored since 17 January, with José Mourinho having suggested in the build-up to his return at Paris Saint-Germain last week that he might need time to regain his former match sharpness. Costa’s three-game ban had actually ruled him out for three weeks, checking the momentum that had seen him strike six goals in his previous 10 appearances.

While he still disagrees with the ban, the 26-year-old’s focus is firmly set upon winning the first silverware of his Chelsea career – as well as of Mourinho’s second spell in charge – at Spurs’ expense. “The suspension has gone,” said Costa, who will be playing at Wembley for the first time. “It’s one thing that happened, and now I’m just trying to get back to my best physical form. You have just to forget about it. I joined a club like Chelsea to win titles. As we say, finals are not there to be played. They are there to be won. I will go into the game with the mentality and have the motivation to come away with the title.

“After last season I had a few [hamstring] injuries and then, when I was on top form and was playing at my best, I had that suspension – and I still don’t even know why that happened. Now, I’m running a little bit behind, trying to do my best, working hard and hopefully I’ll be 100%. As for not scoring recently, that doesn’t worry me. The truth is I didn’t even know how many games it has been. What worries me is to be in the best physical form to score goals. Never mind the opposition. We all know we are a good team and we have the quality to win.”

These two sides have met twice in the Premier League already this season, with Spurs’ thumping 5-3 win on New Year’s Day their first in the derby in 11 attempts stretching back to 2010. The last time the teams met at Wembley was in the 2012 FA Cup semi-final, when Didier Drogba inspired a 5-1 rout. Yet the Ivorian, who will start on the bench on Sunday, remains scarred by memories of his only defeat at the national stadium, 2-1 to Tottenham in the 2008 League Cup final when he scored the opener only for goals from Dimitar Berbatov and Jonathan Woodgate, in extra-time, to secure the trophy for Spurs.

“I’ve only lost once in a Wembley final – and we all know who that was against,” said Drogba. “But Wembley has been very good to me over the years, that is the way I would prefer to describe it. It was a difficult one to take [in 2008] because I had only just returned from the African Nations Cup and it was only my second game back for Chelsea. We started well but lost to the better team: it was as simple as that. Most of the time, when you win a cup final, it is because you are the better team on the day, and this time it was Tottenham’s day.

“In the same way that we are capable of giving Tottenham a hard life, you could say they made it very difficult for us at White Hart Lane the last time we played them.

“They are a good team, they play good football and on paper I would say it’s an even contest – which would make it even more enjoyable to score goals against them.”