Chelsea: Diego Costa rumors ring true enough because we’ve seen it before

Diego Costa may be making new contract demands at Atletico Madrid, spurring an effusion of new rumours. The whole thing is a useful to reminder that it is usually the players, not the clubs (not even Chelsea), who are the constant in such situations.

As we’ve pointed out before, you can evaluate football rumours along a simple 2 x 2: is the source credible or not, is the rumour plausible or not. The family of rumours started by Marca’s report of Diego Costa’s desire to increase his wages to match Antoine Griezmann’s are a perfect example. Marca is mildly credible, and a prodigal (if aging and currently goalless) striker wanting to be paid as much as the leading scorer is not outlandish.

Moving into the inbred branches of the rumour family tree, we get to The S*n. They say Costa is using the same leverage against Atletico Madrid as he did against Chelsea: give him what he wants or he’ll go to China. A completely not credible source, but after everything Chelsea went through with Costa, Antonio Conte and the training ground row, not a completely implausible storyline either. In fact, if Atletico did not move quickly to smother this smoldering situation, it plausibly could escalate to Diego Simeone channelling Conte and telling Costa “You can go to China!”

The plausibility of these rumours – independent of the credibility of the sources – is what everyone should stop and consider. A contract flare-up and a threat to go to China is plausible for Costa at Atletico Madrid because he did the same thing under better circumstances at Chelsea.

If anything, these rumours should be completely implausible given the thin basis Costa has for his demands. Whatever his disagreements with Antonio Conte, Costa was younger, scoring more goals and was with a team with better trophy-winning prospects. Costa was also not making demands based on comparing himself to a World Cup winner three years his junior who already has six goals for club and country this season. Costa had far more leverage at Chelsea in 2017/18. These demands now are almost laughable.

But nevertheless, the rumours persist. Because they are part of a pattern. Just as they were with Thibaut Courtois, about whom anyone will believe almost anything after how he behaved at Chelsea and how perfectly he recapitulated his departure from Genk when he ultimately left Stamford Bridge.

This is why Chelsea should not tolerate and Maurizio Sarri should not reward players like Willian and David Luiz. If Chelsea start dropping games, Roman Abramovich starts leaving Sarri threatening voice-mails (since he can’t get into the country to come by Cobham for crisis talks and observe training sessions) and Sarri has to adapt Sarrismo, we would all believe rumours about Willian or Luiz shopping for a transfer or having off-the-record chats with players, agents or management to undermine Sarri. Even as we pooh-poohed the sources of such reports, they would still ring true. They would still have their corrosive effect on and around the club. We could see it happening, and might think it was only a matter of time before someone trustworthy confirmed them. What would be implausible about it? Why wouldn’t they do it again, having “succeeded” the first time?

Willian and Luiz, like Costa and Courtois, got exactly what they wanted by doing exactly what they did. If they want something similar down the road, why change what works?

The players in these situations are the constant, not the clubs or the putative source of discontent. A player will do at Club B what he did at Club A. A player will treat Coach Y the way he treated Coach X under similar circumstances.

No one would believe a rumour about N’Golo Kante threatening to leave Chelsea unless they pay him as much as Manchester United pays Paul Pogba. That is 100% implausible given everything we know about about Kante. Likewise, no one would believe Gary Cahill is leading Danny Drinkwater, Victor Moses and Andreas Christensen in a vengeful sabotage campaign against Maurizio Sarri.

But we all recognize the potential for truth in rumours that Diego Costa is unhappy and ready to lob threats at his dream club. Chelsea should be aware of players and their patterns before making decisions about the players or at their behest. The past is a remarkable guide for the present and the future.