Arsenal: Diego Costa Can Be Made The Fool Twice

Arsenal will be up against the mean, green, fighting machine, Diego Costa. They negated him once, but is the Kostafi partnership capable of shutting him down a second time?

In writing the Three Things To Watch For article, I ran into the fact that we are facing Diego Costa again. I mean, of course we are, but the realization brings up a lot of questions. Arsenal made him look a fool last time. His cries were left unanswered by the officials and Shkodran Mustafi was the clear victor in his first real test against a unique kind of striker.

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Coming up against Diego Costa again, you have to ponder the outcome. And while you are pondering the outcome, you have to ponder how much that outcome will affect the game.

As the Gunners proved last time out, if you can frustrate and fluster Costa, you can handle Chelsea’s attack pretty well. Let him run free and suffer the consequences.

Look at the matches this year where Costa has started and not scored or assisted. 2-0 loss to Tottenham. 3-0 loss to Arsenal. 1-1 draw with Liverpool. 1-0 win against Sunderland. The only match that Chelsea did just fine in without the full Costa was their 4-0 win over Manchester united.

But the theme is pretty obvious. If you can stifle Costa, you have a pretty damn good chance of flustering their offense.

The Gunners were the first team to truly stifle him this year and they did it quite simply. So long as you don’t allow him to use his greatest weapon, he can be silenced. He wants to get under your skin. Despite how in-the-right Gabriel was when he lashed out at Costa, you have to say the striker succeeded. He got a defender sent off.

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When Mertesacker put on that terrible slide tackle, sure there was no contact and Costa actually flopped, but Costa got what he wanted. A defender got sent off.

Maintain a cool head and don’t give him what he wants – an opportunity to change your team layout – and you can absolutely fool this guy twice. Koscielny knows his games and I have faith in him being able to negate Costa.

Mustafi has shown that he can too.

Another major factor though, is the style of officiating. Most officials know the antics of Costa, but they have to know not to award those cheap fouls. You will never hear me blaming refs and that isn’t my intention here, but it is a crucial factor. Costa is going to nurse tackles and make them look so much worse than they really are.

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Everyone, defenders and officials, have to be ready to counteract that.