Chelsea are adamant that Diego Costa will not be sold this month despite his desire to move to the Chinese Super League where he has received a salary offer worth £30 million per year.
Costa has been dropped by Chelsea manager Antonio Conte’s squad for Saturday’s trip to champions Leicester having missed training for the last three days following a training ground argument with one of the club’s fitness coaches on Tuesday.
Costa, 28, has told Chelsea that he wants to move to China, where he is understood to have received an eye-watering offer worth £576,000-a-week – or £30m-a-year – that would dwarf his current £150,000-a-week salary.
But Chelsea sources are insistent that Roman Abramovich, the club’s owner, will not sell Costa in January and will hold the Spain international to his contract, which expires in 2019.
It is a point of principal for Abramovich and the Russian billionaire will hope that Conte is able to re-integrate Costa into the squad, with the striker having scored 14 goals so far this season to help fire the Blues to a five-point lead at the top of the Premier League table.
Costa has been unsettled at the west London club for a while having recently admitted he came close to returning to Atletico Madrid in the summer.
Conte, who became involved when Costa argued with the fitness coach on Tuesday, hinted in his press conference on Friday that he had a decision to make over his squad selection for Saturday’s game against Leicester.
“I have to check a couple of situations and then decide,” Conte said. “I don’t want to say exactly what and give an advantage to our opponent.”
Chinese club Tianjin Quanjian are among the teams to have been linked with an £80m bid for Costa – and now the striker wants to follow the same route as former team-mate Oscar, who joined Shanghai SIPG for £52m earlier this month.
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