Football media's latest Costa Crimes campaign fails thanks to FA inconsistencies

Good news, I suppose, as it would appear that Diego Costa will escape any punishment for what appeared to be an ill-advised kick-out while lying on top of Martin Skrtel in Saturday's game.  How the two of them got into such an uncompromising position was by being rather unfriendly towards each other all game, continuing their love-hate relationship from previous Chelsea vs. Liverpool and Spain vs. Slovakia match-ups.

Striker Costa faced another trial by television after being accused of pushing his studs into the chest of Liverpool defender Skrtel during the second half of the game.

But the Football Association do not plan to take any action because referee Mark Clattenburg witnessed the incident and dealt with it at the time.

-source: Telegraph

So that rule is back in effect this time, after generally getting ignored in the Costa and Gabriel incidents in the Chelsea vs. Arsenal match.  Of course, here I thought the rule was just about abolished in recent years, to allow the FA to take a retrospective look at any incident that warranted it.  Oh well.  Consistently inconsistent, once again, from English football's guiding light.

Or maybe they (and the rather terrible Clattenburg) just decided to take pity on us for once, especially with a couple Mourinho judgments coming down the pipeline pretty soon anyway.  Skrtel didn't make a big deal out of at the time, reacting with a simple "Hey!" at which point Costa seemed to quickly realize that he's done something rather stupid.  And then they hugged it out before resuming their waltz of sharp elbows and death stares.

Here are all the angles and replays you could possibly want of this incident (but just of this incident).