There has been a bit of back and forth about Diego on the forum, interested to see everyones views. 

Edited May 30, 20179 yr by DonAntonio

Diego is one of the top strikers around, theres not many strikers that can score 20goals a season consistently, 3 seasons 2 league titles with Costa and people forget that.

Arsenal vs Chelsea showed me a couple of things about our team, when our backs are against the wall and none of our players are showing up, Costa grabs a goal out of nowhere. His fight and determination to score goals is irreplaceable, Not that many strikers can replace that. 

However he is lacking in key areas such as technical ability and first touch etc and If we can replace him with a better striker (That is hard to do) then for all means we should.

I was all for selling him...but it had to be to a Chinese club because of the ridiculous fee that would be paid.

Looks like that won't happen now, so now it's a case of weighing up what we have and what we can get with a greatly reduced fee, and who is a realistic target.

The rumoured pending 20m offer from Atletico is laughable and not even worth responding to. Absolutely no reason why we shouldnt be making a profit.

Sell. Too much inconsistency from him and you never know what he could do. When all in the team was perfect and we were leading strong, Costa destroys all that and goes missing for half of the season right to the end.

He do this over and over again, 3 season is enough.
If someone forgot, he was doing sh** under Mourinho in his third season. He was throwing big at him, sorry but that is unacceptable. And in the begining of the season there was a problem with Conte. Costa yell at Conte to subs him. And all that was played in front of TV and all the teammates. And was done at the pitch. Then the story with China and in the most imporant moment, we was without striker for long, long period. Conte even take him out of the squad for 1 match.

Because of his inconsistency, not once he was the top scorer in the league. Thats tell a lot. In the end of this season he is 5th ....

And you forget that if Costa is gone, there will be someone to his position, and the team Conte create play for striker and i`m sure anyone on top class will score even more goals and will help the team to score a lot more, then now, because of Costa poor technique and his wooden touches.

Not to mention how many more goals top quality striker will score if he just outrun defenders(can`t happen with Costa, cause he has average speed) and by run for the crosses our wingbacks do. Not like Costa stand in the back and he is always late.

Also he lost his form, it`s not only that he wanted to leave. His form drop permanent, and there is no guarantee that he can get it back and we won`t suffer big. There is always drama about him and there is no guarantee that he won`t do his antics in the new season once again.

I repeat again, all was perfect in the team, and Costa(who is not very smart indeed) decide to destroy all with the China sh*** .... In the middle of the season, and some people are defending him. The team is bigger then anyone and i`m pretty sure Lukaku will do better then Costa. 15 matches in the CL - only 2 goals ....

 

 

 

 

Would rather sell and replace with a striker who can do it for an entire year. 3 years with Diego and he's never turned up for more than half a season. If he'd have that consistency in his game he'd easily be one of, it not the, best striker around.

Sell him in the summer, but overall he did well for us and i would wish him well.

Should have the option to vote "Whatever Conte wants".

It's a tough call, a call only a top manager can make.

Roman has invested some billion pounds into the team since buying the club. 

How many of those players have scored twenty or more goals in a season and how often? 

Drogba is the only one I can think of and he scored 20+ goals twice in nine seasons. 

Costa has done it twice in three seasons, both times helping us win the league title. 

Too right I'd keep him. 

 

9 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Roman has invested some billion pounds into the team since buying the club. 

How many of those players have scored twenty or more goals in a season and how often? 

Drogba is the only one I can think of and he scored 20+ goals twice in nine seasons. 

Costa has done it twice in three seasons, both times helping us win the league title. 

Too right I'd keep him. 

 

Your boy Diego is going nowhere

So, 50% say Sell to the highest bidder, while 55% say "He has served us well, glad we have him" - No ambivalence there, then!

Mixed responses for mixed signals from Diego! 

I haven't voted. The option I'd go for isn't there. 

7 minutes ago, Blue Exile said:

I haven't voted. The option I'd go for isn't there. 

Which is?

Keep Diego. Don't underestimate how hard it is to get a good striker. Even those with prior reputations have tanked at Chelsea in the past. Diego has done the business and the results prove it.

The only caveat I have is that if there is something behind the scenes that we don't know about.

I think his bad attitude is always going to come back to bite us.  Conte tamed him for a season but I don't think it's a long term solution. 

Would sell but thank him immensely for his service. Been very good for us.

1 hour ago, Zola said:

Which is?

More or less what I said in my post earlier in the thread. For me there are grey areas on the decision and other factors that influence if he should go or stay. 

2 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Roman has invested some billion pounds into the team since buying the club. 

How many of those players have scored twenty or more goals in a season and how often? 

Drogba is the only one I can think of and he scored 20+ goals twice in nine seasons. 

Costa has done it twice in three seasons, both times helping us win the league title. 

Too right I'd keep him. 

 

The stats that convinced me I want him to stay wasnt the 20 goals, but it was the fact he has scored the most first goals in the premier league this season and also he has won his team the most points (though the second one is a bit of a strange one).

Reluctantly I'd sell but only if we can sign Morata. If Morata moves to AC Milan or elsewhere I'd prefer if we kept Diego until next summer (as you can probably tell i'm not a Lukaku fanboy).

Ideally I'd prefer if Diego stays and we sign Morata (and also Llorente/Jann-Fiete Arp)

Edited May 30, 20179 yr by the special one

58 minutes ago, dkw said:

The stats that convinced me I want him to stay wasnt the 20 goals, but it was the fact he has scored the most first goals in the premier league this season and also he has won his team the most points (though the second one is a bit of a strange one).

This 100%. Top strikers score the important goal, the one that is the difference scaremongering 1 or 3 pts in a game of few chances. Yes there are strikers who will outscore him but often they are adding the third goal in a stroll. 

Diego has an attitude no doubt, he infuriates sometimes but when he's on his game a defender knows he's there, stretching and leading the attack. Get a decent backup for him, one that will challenge his position and we'll get the best out of him.

On a footnote now many of us wanted Drogba gone after his sending off in the CL final? He had an attitude and frequently some to the press in France etc. Wouldn't we have looked a set of twats if he had been seen off earlier in his Chelsea career. He careful what you wish for.

4 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Roman has invested some billion pounds into the team since buying the club. 

How many of those players have scored twenty or more goals in a season and how often? 

Drogba is the only one I can think of and he scored 20+ goals twice in nine seasons. 

Costa has done it twice in three seasons, both times helping us win the league title. 

Too right I'd keep him. 

 

Exactly my sentiment. Whilst we all love guile and have had some of the most delicately tidy attacking footballers in the premier league and or Roman era, we've been our most potent and successful with the presence of a brutish striker at our helm. Having said that I'm not fixated on the idea that this is our only route to success, I'm merely saying that we shouldn't overlook and progress to another striker than Costa whimsically and the best outcome (in my opinion) this summer is if we keep him and add another top striker hopefully.

5 hours ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Would rather sell and replace with a striker who can do it for an entire year. 3 years with Diego and he's never turned up for more than half a season. If he'd have that consistency in his game he'd easily be one of, it not the, best striker around.

To be fair though mate the whole team hasn't turned up for the second half of both title winning seasons, we were blistering before Jan and although we still won key games and got the job done, not letting our heads drop, we weren't playing nearly as well. 

This poll started because of a debate between myself @Barrettinator and @didierforever although more people want him to stay and appreciate what he has done I'm genuinely surprised how many people want him gone, thought this would be a landslide, so fair play, I strongly disagree and think @ForeverCarefree summed it up perfectly, but I recognise there is a strong opposing viewpoint amongst some of our forum, interesting stuff, we will see how the manager feels in the coming weeks. 

Edited May 30, 20179 yr by DonAntonio

8 minutes ago, DonAntonio said:

To be fair though mate the whole team hasn't turned up for the second half of both title winning seasons, we were blistering before Jan and although we still won key games and got the job done, not letting our heads drop, we weren't playing nearly as well. 

Although i agree the performance of others dropped i feel Diego's was more severe. Whereas others still contribute on some level, Diego ends up losing the ball and getting in the way of our own players and fluffing easy shots. I think a lot of it lies on the managers also, instead of dropping him and giving another striker a chance over previous years they seem to prefer trying to play him back into form that doesn't work.

Just now, RIP Mourinho said:

Although i agree the performance of others dropped i feel Diego's was more severe. Whereas others still contribute on some level, Diego ends up losing the ball and getting in the way of our own players and fluffing easy shots. I think a lot of it lies on the managers also, instead of dropping him and giving another striker a chance over previous years they seem to prefer trying to play him back into form that doesn't work.

I can't disagree with the fact he was really poor for a number of weeks, he looked like he couldn't hit a barn door with a beach ball, and he lost more balls than my grandad on the dogs leg,  but I still saw him working hard of the ball and that's one of the key feature of his game. When you have one man up front it's going to stand out when he is off his game, other players can hide a bit.