Costa questions Conte’s bedside manner, is open to loan move to facilitate Chelsea exit

Reports from the AP and the BBC did not carry Costa’s full set of quotes after Spain’s 2-1 win over Macedonia on Sunday, and that means we missed out on a couple juicy details.

One of those is that Costa says he’s willing to go out on loan for the first half of next season before joining Atlético in January. Which is all well and good, but finding a suitor for such a weird arrangement will not be easy and we still haven’t resolved the not so minor detail of Atléti no doubt insisting on lowballing Chelsea with a €20m transfer offer.

“Signing for Atletico doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t be playing. I could be loaned out.”

The Evening Standard had a story a few days ago that Atléti could use their Chinese business connections to figure out this half-season loan move. Sounds convoluted and rather vague, but that may still be our best hope of an easy resolution.

But then Costa also digs his heels in a bit, Wolf of Wall Street-style, (putting all the onus on Chelsea), before appearing to throw a bit of shade Conte’s way, presumably for how he handled the situation. We’re going to need some serious therapy to smooth all this over if we end up not selling him this summer.

“Chelsea are my owners. If they want to sell me, they’ll have to sell me. Conte? There are ways to do and say things... thank God that I’m not without a team.”

-Diego Costa; source: Cadena SER via Football España