Three lessons Chelsea should learn to never repeat the Diego Costa situation

The long Blue nightmare is over. Chelsea and Atletico Madrid agreed to terms for Diego Costa’s transfer. Now to ensure such a situation never happens again at Stamford Bridge.

No bells pealed in west London. No executives or attorneys clapped themselves on the back for a deal well done. Martini glasses did not clink in a boardroom or bar room. Antonio Conte probably nodded, perhaps exhaled some relief, and continued apace with video analysis when he heard that Chelsea had come to terms with Atletico Madrid for Diego Costa’s transfer.

Then again, we know the man likes to celebrate. He very well may have run in a circle around his office before leaping onto Gianluca’s back, pumping his fist into the air.

Regardless of how Chelsea personnel took the news, the saga is complete. As part of moving on, Chelsea should take to heart some key lessons from the whole incident. They should write them down, submit them as case studies to management schools and make them required reading for new hires so no club – Chelsea or otherwise – will ever again land in this position.

When a player says he no longer wishes to play for you, take him at his word

Like other relationships, when a player tells his club that he no longer wants to be there, his heart and mind are already long gone. In fact, they may very well belong to someone else. This was more the case than usual with Diego Costa, who never stopped pining for his ex. At best, Chelsea were Diego Costa’s side club. At worst, they were “the other club.”

Chelsea and Costa seemed content in their first season together. He was the aggressive powerful centre-forward the Blues needed post-Didier Drogba. If there were issues in 2014/15, they stayed below the surface.

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No one at Stamford Bridge was content in the second season, and that carried over into his third and final act. Costa was already eyeing a return to Atletico when the bids from China started. Chelsea should have acted immediately after the training ground incident. Costa publicly desiring Atletico was bad enough. But the quickness with which the money from China turned his head completely changed the equation. Chelsea were now his third-choice. And he showed that even Atletico could not hold his attention in the face of a world-record transfer and wage packet.

By the time Chelsea were reading about Diego Costa’s Atletico yearnings in the media they should have already been crafting the deal. There was nothing Chelsea could have done to have reclaimed Costa’s attention, let alone the passion and loyalty he should feel towards the club. His kit was at Cobham and the Bridge, but he was elsewhere. A club cannot tolerate that division.

A good sale is great, but a bad sale is sometimes necessary

Chelsea and Atletico Madrid did the transfer dance all summer. Atletico’s transfer ban complicated the situation, but only superficially. Everyone involved knew that Costa could not play for Atletico until January, and would not play for Chelsea, ever.

Atletico had a better bargaining position than Chelsea. Out of spite, pride or bottom-line myopia, the Blues kept trying to make the transfer as profitable as possible. However, this lost sight of the goal. They were not selling Diego Costa to make money. They were selling him to get rid of him.

Chelsea could have sold Diego Costa on July 1. This would have saved Antonio Conte countless questions at press conferences. It would have spared the Daily Mail the embarrassment of publishing their puff piece interview, er, impromptu candid conversation after an unannounced arrival on the Costa family’s doorstep. The team could have bonded better on the pitch and off – tactically and socially – with the certainty that his departure would bring.

Chelsea will reportedly bank over £50 million for Costa, a profit of over £20 million. The peace and finality of an earlier sale would have been worth simply breaking even.

Empower the manager (after promoting Antonio Conte to manager)

Going forward, Chelsea should promote Antonio Conte to manager. This will give him greater discretion in the club’s transfer business and player strategy. More importantly, it will let the players know that this is the manager’s team. The owner owns the enterprise, and the board and executives make it run. But the manager owns the product on the pitch.

This will eliminate the conflicts between players, coach and the board. As Chelsea are currently set up, players can circumvent the coach and make demands – direct or indirect, in public or in private – on club hierarchy. Player power involves detaching the coach from the decision-makers. When the coach is the decision-maker, as he would be as a proper football manager, player power never has a chance to take hold in an organization.

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Players and their agents are wielding more control than ever over clubs and coaches. Chelsea should vest Antonio Conte with the trust and authority that Sir Alex Ferguson had at Manchester United. His control and success were inextricable. Conte is one of the few managers who could follow in that mould.