Dave Kidd: As Pep Guardiola went squeamish, bulldozing Diego Costa showed why he can guide Chelsea to Premier League title
Spain striker was in a sulk last season but Antonio Conte has torn apart Jose Mourinho's claim fiery hitman needed that edge
SO which was your favourite strike from a weekend that provided a Goal of a Season competition all of its own?
Would you vote for the supreme technique of Jeff Hendrick as he opened the scoring for Burnley against Bournemouth?
Or perhaps you preferred Wilfried Zaha’s solo beauty for Crystal Palace at Hull — which might not even have been the best goal of the match thanks to Adama Diomande’s gem of a finish.
Maybe you’d go for Sofiane Boufal announcing himself to the Premier League with a belter for Southampton against Middlesbrough.
And a special shout out for the Fulham free-kick routine which saw Tom Cairney thunder in a comic-book volley which Hot Shot Hamish himself would have savoured.
Me, I’d plump for Diego Costa’s match-winner against West Brom.
Perhaps it wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing as those other contenders.
Yet when it’s 0-0 after 76 minutes and Tony Pulis is defending his trenches with a battalion of centre-halves, sometimes you need a man like Costa to use brute force to outmuscle Gareth McAuley and a dead eye to alleviate the attrition.
On a weekend when Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola went all squeamish and claimed he does not coach tackling, Costa is the prime reason why Chelsea manager Antonio Conte looks like beating him to the title.
Costa spent last season in a sulk, and last summer dreaming of a move back to Atletico Madrid.
But Conte not only sweet-talked his centre-forward into staying and cajoled him into scoring consistently, he has also man-managed the petulance out of the Spain centre-forward.
Even Jose Mourinho used to spout the nonsense that a temperamental player like Costa will lose ‘that edge’ if he doesn’t act like a twerp all his life — yet Conte has taken a sledgehammer to that old chestnut.
And it’s not as if Conte has arrived in England and gone native. After a dodgy September, he re-moulded Chelsea into the 3-4-3 formation he often preferred in Italy and has achieved a feat of precision engineering during nine consecutive victories.
Guardiola, meanwhile, has shown no such nous.
This weekend he didn’t even show the basic commonsense to defend deeper against Jamie Vardy. Or employ an actual centre-half alongside John Stones.
It would be trite to regard St Pep’s daft comments on tackling as an affront to the grand physical traditions of English football — a land of blood and sweat, testosterone and violence, where Boxing Day is a football day and Stuart Pearce runs off a broken leg through mists of time perfumed by liniment and Bovril.
Guardiola was just trying to be a smart Alec in a press conference, as he often does now that he isn’t covered by papal infallibility.
You do have to wonder, though, whether he’d ever employ a wonderful b*****d such as Costa, the Prem’s great anti-hero.
After defeating West Brom, Costa was pictured in the Chelsea dressing room swilling beer, with his chewing tobacco and his gunpowder magazine presumably just off camera.
In days of yore, he’d have headed off down the King’s Road with a maiden slung over his shoulder and Ollie Reed as a drinking partner.
Times have changed, of course, what with yer camera phones and yer women’s lib. But Guardiola might need to realise that they haven’t changed as much as all that.
Nev-er ending story
ON Sunday’s Match of the Day, Phil Neville claimed Liverpool keeper Loris Karius had made a big mistake in midweek following his blunder in the 4-3 defeat at Bournemouth.
Did he go on the lash? Was he late for training? Did he not catch enough balls at Melwood?
No he fronted up for a newspaper interview and claimed he didn’t care what Phil’s brother Gary said about him on another TV channel.
It was reminiscent of Gary putting the frighteners on England players as he obsessed about leaked information during his time as Roy Hodgson’s coach.
Remarkable blokes these Neville brothers — making a good living from the media but wholeheartedly opposed to footballers speaking to the media.
What was it Jaap Stam called them in his autobiography? Busy…?
Time to finish it, Roy
IN the aftermath of England’s disastrous Euro 2016 exit, Martin Glenn meant well when he told Roy Hodgson that ‘Iceland will not be your epitaph’.
Yet if the FA chief executive hadn’t uttered those words, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to Hodgson that one disastrous defeat might have defined him, because the former England boss is proud of his 40-year coaching career.
Hodgson is now desperate to return to management but at the age of 69, his sharpness of mind has faded. He ought to heed the advice of friends and family by enjoying a long and happy retirement.
Cool Ed on Jones
ENGLAND’S Australian rugby coach Eddie Jones chose New Zealand-born Dylan Hartley as his skipper despite the hooker’s lengthy crimesheet and saw him lead the team to 13 straight victories this year.
Yet since Hartley was sent off playing for Northampton on Friday, there have been pious calls for Jones to strip him of the captaincy.
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Jones will do no such thing. Perhaps this is why these Aussies and Kiwis tend to have more success than England.
They don’t worry too much about morality and concentrate on who’s best at the rugby.
Looks like Bad move
OF all the Team GB members I spoke to at the Rio Olympics, none was more passionate than badminton player Chris Langridge, who was evangelical about a mass-participation sport often unfairly maligned.
But despite Langridge winning doubles bronze with Marcus Ellis, a fine achievement in a sport dominated by Far Eastern rivals, UK Sport has made the savage decision to remove all funding from badminton.
When even relative success is punished in the drive for more and more Olympic medals, UK Sport’s priorities have become horribly skewed.
Let's table this idea
DERECK CHISORA’S bout with Dillian Whyte was stripped of its British title status after Chisora chucked a table at his rival in the pre-fight press conference.
But despite the furniture rearrangement, it turned out to be a magnificent slug-fest — so compelling that even the referee applauded.
If the pair face up for the rematch, perhaps they ought to invent a title for them. The MFI heavyweight championship of the world?
Seconds out, Sean
AT the end of Saturday’s first half at Burnley’s Turf Moor, it was announced ‘there will be a minimum of one minute added time’.
One minute and 15 seconds later, Bournemouth’s Benik Afobe scored and Sean Dyche went apoplectic at the officials. So which part of the word ‘minimum’ doesn’t Dyche understand?