The Blues made light work of Leicester City and returned to winning ways after beating the League Champions by a convincing 3-0 scoreline at the King Power Stadium.
It was only the second time in the Premier League this season that the Blues were without Diego Costa. There has been a lot of speculation regarding the Spaniard’s future after reports emerged of him having a ‘bust up’ with Chelsea boss Antonio Conte and being dropped from the squad.
However, in his post-match press conference as per Chelseafc.com, the Italian insisted that the only reason he left Costa out from the squad was due to a back injury he picked up whilst training on Tuesday and he hasn’t trained with the squad since then.
He said: “The truth is this: on Tuesday during the training session Diego stopped because he felt a pain in his back. From that moment he didn’t train during the week, and for this reason he wasn’t available for the starting XI, for the bench or to come with the squad.”
Conte went on to say that he was aware of the news doing the rounds regarding him and Costa, but maintained that if he were to have any problems with his players, it would be solved by him in the privacy of the dressing room and not openly in a press conference.
“I read a lot of speculation about this topic,” he said. “I can say if there are problems, and I repeat if there are problems, I am used in my career to solving the problem in the changing room, not outside or in the press conference, and I repeat if there are problems. I told you the truth.”
Chelsea left Leicester with all three points, thanks to a brace from Marcos Alonso and Pedro’s seventh goal of the season in all competitions. This win helps Chelsea temporarily extend their lead to 7 points and Conte insisted that the focus needed to be on the players who featured on the night.
“It’s important to talk today about our win, to talk about the players who played this game,” he said. “They showed me great will to fight, to win, and also thanks to our fans. They pushed us a lot from the start to the end. It’s important to continue together, always together. We must enjoy this victory. We deserved it.”