He is when he tries to be. But he only tries for half a season. The last half he didn't even bother making runs, when he doesn't do that there's almost nothing left. It's his own fault too, he constantly tried to dribble past players, or he picks the ball up from deep and loses it.
I don't think anyone will disagree with you that he is one of the best strikers in the league when he is on form, but when he's not there's nothing he can fall back on, and he becomes more of a hinderence than anything else.
That's why I told out friend from India watching live is different he is always running off the ball off the camera, making room for players like hazardhe always makes his runs, season before last season he was out wide a lot for whatever reason and he had a sh*t season but so did all the team.
Same way the whole team dips second halfback of the season, part of it is a fatigue, we had zero rotation, even with no Europe it's hard, winning the league takes more effort than mid table, we were under pressure busting our arses every week.
Costa had 5 or 6 poor games in a row this half season is something someone said once and became commonplace, wasn't the case at all, if he played half a season then he is a 40 goal striker is he plays that good alll season?
Matic on the other hand just f**ks off indefinitely, he can be phenomenal on his day and then just turns into a passive shell of his best, that's 65 percent of the time, of matic could play at his best even half a season I'd fight for him tooth and nail.
Costa doesn't do that, he always tries, he always fights, if it wasn't for the friction with management we wouldn't dream of replacing him, he is a brilliant striker, he won us 15 points by himself last season, 15 points...
He will get you a goal out of nothing and I'll tell you if his linkup play and dribbling that you have criticised was top class as well he would probably be the best striker in the world or there about, because he rest of his game is top notch, those are the only 2 weaknesses to his game but like I said it's not in his mound as a player.
You have to know what to look for in a striker, our Indian friend who calls him a "c**t" doesn't like him because he can't run fast enough and pirouette past a defence of Fifa ultimate team, but listen to how shearer speaks about him, nothing but praise because as a top striker he understands all the things Costa does that you can't do on FIFA, he called him the pl player of the season, honestly we could go 10 years without a striker as good as Costa, people don't realise that.