Jose Mourinho has confirmed that Diego Costa is available
for Chelsea's home match against QPR on Saturday after three weeks out, but
stressed that the striker needs "special care."
Mourinho again fanned the flames of his dispute with Vicente
Del Bosque over Costa after the Spain coach said he would be
"stubborn" over selecting him.
That comment came after Mourinho's recent plea for Spain to
allow him to rest, and the Chelsea boss told a news conference: "The only
thing I can say is what everybody knows -- which is the time he was having
problems in Chelsea and the way we managed to keep him playing, but after the
national team we lost him for four matches.
"Crystal Palace, Maribor, Shrewsbury and Man United --
four matches in three different competitions. Now he's again available, but he
needs obviously to be again under special care. We are going to do that. It's
the only thing we can do -- nothing else.
"He's available. That's good for us. It's difficult
with only one striker available. When you have two, obviously the situation
improves.
"We don't have [John Obi] Mikel -- it's not good for
us. He's always an option. But the fact we have recovered Ramires is a
compensation for that loss. So the situation is a bit better."
Costa is set to be called up for Spain's Euro 2016 qualifier
against Belarus, as well as their friendly against Germany next week.
"That's not my call, that's not my decision,"
Mourinho said. "I am always supportive of players playing for their
countries when the players are in condition to do it, and when the players in
the national team follow the same procedures to recover from the problems they
have.
"I'm nobody to stand in the way of the national team. I
cannot stop him going."
In-form Diego Costa has missed four matches for Chelsea.
He praised the form of Didier Drogba, who has scored three
times in his last three games, saying it gives him a "fantastic
problem."
"To be important you don't need, at the age of 36, to
play 90 minutes of 50 matches," he said. "To be important you need to
be there when the team needs you to be there.
"And, obviously, he was fantastic for us in the last
week when we were in real trouble without Diego and [Loic] Remy [who has also
been injured and is out until after the international break], doing something
that nobody should do -- playing two 90 minutes of football with 48 hours
difference. He managed to do that in an absolutely fantastic way.
"It is a fantastic problem for me, and the perfect
problem is when Remy is back. That's the perfect problem, to have all three.
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