Chelsea enter contract extension talks with Diego Costa — report

Anyone hoping to keep striker Diego Costa at Chelsea for a while longer, the latest developments must sound rather delicious. Now to add the icing on the cake, a report from Italian journalist Gianluca Di Marzio claims the club and and the player are already in talks about a new contract extension.

The round of good news on Diego's future started with an official statement from Tianjin Quanjian who appeared to be the main contender for his signature in a blockbuster move. Perhaps in anticipation of the news that would hit the papers two days after, the club denied ever being in talks with Diego over the past six months.

This was followed by the Chinese Football Association deciding on a 100% tax on transfers made by "loss-making" clubs from the country. It was a reaction to the influx of foreign players joining the league for record breaking transfer fees.

Though this decision by the Chinese FA also served to reignite the yearly round of "Diego Costa will go back to Atlético Madrid" transfer rumours, it also made Diego's exit from Chelsea more unlikely.

Diego himself has said that he wants to stay at Chelsea. His desire to win the Champions League as well as his good relationship with manager Antonio Conte are the main motivators behind his decision to stay in Europe - and thus at Chelsea - instead of joining the riches that China could offer. His current contract ends in 2019, and the club apparently want to tie him down to a three-year deal with €15 million in yearly earnings.

Di Marzio claims that the extension "could materialize in the following days", and this is certainly great news. Though Romelu Lukaku and Álvaro Morata are younger and would offer more mileage than the 28-year-old Diego, extending his contract would allow us to focus on other areas in the upcoming transfer window. And as the second half of the season showed, we do need to bring in competition at key positions as we look towards Premier League and Champions League glory next season.