Atlético Madrid nowhere close to matching Chelsea’s valuation of Diego Costa

Diego Costa flipped the script this weekend with regards to his transfer situation at Chelsea, declaring quite categorically that he doesn’t want to go to China (either of his own volition or under Chelsea’s urging) and that the only other team he would play for at the moment is Atlético Madrid. (Thus destroying a good bit of leverage Chelsea may have had in any such negotiations, too.)

After six months of Costa supposedly wanting to leave Chelsea for untold riches elsewhere, he’s now apparently more than happy to see out at least the two years left on his contract (and perhaps more, if the contract extension rumors are true).

So the onus now appears to be firmly on Chelsea to make a decision. “Complicating” this decision, according to Miguel Delaney in The Independent, is that Atlético are only willing to pay £20m, which could be a problem if we were counting on Costa to help supply some of the moneys for major signings (the Chinese bid was supposed to be upwards of £70-80m, with Chelsea rejecting €90m in January and asking €150m) — though there was at least one story recently, which claimed that Chelsea’s pursuit of Lukaku and Morata is not actually dependent on Costa’s future.

But if Atlético are indeed only willing to fork over £20m, then the decision is actually very simple: Costa stays and we all live happily ever after.