Diego Costa: "If they provoke me, I'll score against them"

With Diego Costa sparking terror in opposition defences since the moment he stepped onto a pitch wearing a Chelsea shirt, we've seen some teams resort to desperate measures to stop him. Seamus Coleman and Everton did their best to wind him up, with Roberto Martinez escalating the situation in a rather unbecoming post-game press conference. Two weeks later, Gylfi Sigurdsson tried to start a confrontation with the forward then faked injury in an attempt to get him sent off.

Costa goals in those matches: five.

The moral of the story should be that annoying Diego Costa is unlikely to result in anything good, a message that the striker himself is quick to echo.

You’ve got to know how to manage these situations. The truth is I’m fairly relaxed. If they provoke me, I’ll score against them. The reality is, for the moment, that I haven’t had any really physical battles. Things have been going well. So far, I’m enjoying it.

Source: Telegraph.

What went unsaid in there is that Costa will score against them even if they don't provoke him. But pissing him off doesn't accomplish anything and only serves to make the ensuing humiliation even stronger. You cannot stop Diego Costa. You can only hope that he doesn't score a hattrick against you and spend the next six months laughing at you in your dreams.