Diego Costa

[fishhhandaricecake]

City are the masters of cynical fouls.

And Andy Robertson one of the most shithousing players around. Henderson and Van Dijk as well.

Not keen on Costa, he’s not the nicest character but more importantly he’s old now and hasn’t had a good season for a good few years now. But I trust Jose with whoever we sign

 

[Moonie]

Actually I believe I’ve misspoken there and that he was investigated but never charged, for which I apologise.

No worries bud! To be honest I’d forgot about that story, we did have a period of our players getting caught pissed out of their minds, Ledley more than once!!

 

[Davo99]

Had to come here from the ITK thread, as my name is Dave and it all got a bit too much in there.

I hope if Costa was at the training ground and had Covid that we aren’t gonna have an outbreak at the club. I do think he’d be a great signing for us though as back up/rotation option for Kane. If Harry was to get injured for a while again, I think Costa would still be more than good enough to lead the line for a few games. He may not be in his prime anymore, but he’s still very capable.

I wonder what kind of fee he’d command?

 

[mr ashley]

I’m not taking a holier than this approach, I’m suggesting that others are taking that approach towards Costa. I’m also in no way saying not to support Hugo, what I am saying is that given that we do, it would be hypocritical to use what we deem as questionable on pitch behaviour as a reason to not support a signing.

As for bringing up off pitch examples to make my point about Costa’s on pitch behaviour being irrelevant to whether we sign him, I think they are absolute valid as my criticism isn’t of Hugo, or Ledley or of Rafa, my criticism is of people compartmentalising to the extent that they are capable of showing overwhelming understanding to those players but not to someone who commits the heinous crime of being ‘unsportsmanlike’. To my mind, I love Hugo despite his severe error of judgement, therefore I can judge Costa only on his ability, not on his ‘antics’ on the pitch.

So, just to be clear.
You mentioned VDV, king, Hugo as players we love who actually broke the law to highlight the hypocrisy of criticising costa (who has, to my knowledge, never broken the law)
In all fairness, if we’d been linked to alonso (who spurs fans often accuse of being a murderer for his drink driving offence I believe), and I was critical of this, then I think you’d have a point. That would be hypocritical.

It would also be hypocritical of me to take a moral standpoint on signing costa because he was a shithouse, if we had notable shithouse alumni such as Hugo, vdv and ledley in our rich history. But they aren’t that kind of player.

No one else is mentioning off the field behaviour in this discussion. This isn’t a discussion about Diego Costa in his car, at a bar, or at home with his wife.

Judging by most fans reaction to costa ( and the other shithouse alumni I mentioned in a previous post), being unsportsmanlike is viewed as quite a serious offence on a football pitch.
I totally understand his footballing abilities (which are on the decline), but when he’s on the pitch wearing a spurs shirt it’s highly likely that he’d behave in such an unsportsmanlike manner again, and that’s why I’d rather not sign Diego Costa.

 

[BringBack_leGin]

So, just to be clear.
You mentioned VDV, king, Hugo as players we love who actually broke the law to highlight the hypocrisy of criticising costa (who has, to my knowledge, never broken the law)
In all fairness, if we’d been linked to alonso (who spurs fans often accuse of being a murderer for his drink driving offence I believe), and I was critical of this, then I think you’d have a point. That would be hypocritical.

It would also be hypocritical of me to take a moral standpoint on signing costa because he was a shithouse, if we had notable shithouse alumni such as Hugo, vdv and ledley in our rich history. But they aren’t that kind of player.

No one else is mentioning off the field behaviour in this discussion. This isn’t a discussion about Diego Costa in his car, at a bar, or at home with his wife.

Judging by most fans reaction to costa ( and the other shithouse alumni I mentioned in a previous post), being unsportsmanlike is viewed as quite a serious offence on a football pitch.
I totally understand his footballing abilities (which are on the decline), but when he’s on the pitch wearing a spurs shirt it’s highly likely that he’d behave in such an unsportsmanlike manner again, and that’s why I’d rather not sign Diego Costa.

I will say this simply, one last time, as I’m sure you are as bored of this pointless exercise as I am, and then I shall say no more on the matter to you or anyone else:

I feel that it displays hypocrisy to condemn poor on field behaviour if you turn a blind eye to poor off field behaviour. To me it makes no difference that one is off field and the other is on field. Furthermore, I care not that you or anyone else disagrees, I am more than comfortable with our respective views being diametrically opposed and have no wish to change your mind, just as I know you cannot change mine.

 

[mr ashley]

I will say this simply, one last time, as I’m sure you are as bored of this pointless exercise as I am, and then I shall say no more on the matter to you or anyone else:

I feel that it displays hypocrisy to condemn poor on field behaviour if you turn a blind eye to poor off field behaviour. To me it makes no difference that one is off field and the other is on field. Furthermore, I care not that you or anyone else disagrees, I am more than comfortable with our respective views being diametrically opposed and have no wish to change your mind, just as I know you cannot change mine.

You are right.
I apologise to everyone else who has the misfortune of reading this tedious back and forth.
Being 50% of its creation has been about as much fun.
That said, we often agree so I’m more than happy to draw a line under this one.

 

[doctor stefan Freud]

I will say this simply, one last time, as I’m sure you are as bored of this pointless exercise as I am, and then I shall say no more on the matter to you or anyone else:

I feel that it displays hypocrisy to condemn poor on field behaviour if you turn a blind eye to poor off field behaviour. To me it makes no difference that one is off field and the other is on field. Furthermore, I care not that you or anyone else disagrees, I am more than comfortable with our respective views being diametrically opposed and have no wish to change your mind, just as I know you cannot change mine.

You are right.
I apologise to everyone else who has the misfortune of reading this tedious back and forth.
Being 50% of its creation has been about as much fun.
That said, we often agree so I’m more than happy to draw a line under this one.

Get a room you big blouses

 

[gibbospurs]

Costa thread please

 

[nikojev]

Can't say i've seen him play since he left Chelsea as I got better things to do than watching atletico win 1-0. So I have no idea if he's past it ablility wise, but he'll always be a twat on the field. He just can't help himself. In the beginning I despised him, but then he actually started growing on me.

Nowdays he makes me laugh with his antics. He's a true thug, but without the wanna be gangsta attitude. Players like for example Balotelli have attitude problems and they do brainless shit. Costa doesn't have an attitude problem, he just plays the game in a different way.

Don't know how VAR would affect what he does, but as far as I can remember he's not a player that does one or two super nasty things red card worthy things every game. The thing with him is that you will have to deal with his antics every second he's on the field. Everytime he's close to you, you just know he's going to be stepping on your toes and shit.

 

[ardiles]

The provocative effect of a potential Costa signing! He hasn’t joined the club (yet?) and the fans are already bickering about him.

 

[ilikeost]

I love characters like him and if he's happy to sit on our bench and fill in when needed for a couple of years then I'm happy to have him.

 

[spursfan77]

I'm not saying Costa is the answer, but if there one thing I took away from the Amazon doc it's that we badly need more players with an edge about them. We're too nice.

Someone said in the doc that the players themselves think Dier is the only one who enjoys the fight and we need more of that.

I'm not saying I want us to cheat through every game like Costa does, but we really need to be more competitive and harden up.

I agree. I wonder if Man U fans were having the same conversations as us about a lack of winners when he joined them and then brought in Zlatan for his character and professionalism, which led to their two transfers?

Im not saying we should sign him, or think that we will, but an experienced player like Costa who hasn’t had professionalism problems since he was a young player and is a good trainer and fierce on the pitch could be what we need. He has a lot of similar traits and experiences to Ibrahimovich in that respect. It wouldn’t be the most ridiculous idea from him.

 

[spursfan77]

The two things are different to me. People make mistakes in life, sometimes very bad mistakes, and I'm a big believer in rehabilitation. But I don't really take off-pitch stuff into account when it comes to whether or not someone plays for us, though I would personally draw the line for certain offences, and you can imagine what those are.

What happens on the pitch is, for me, different. Personally I think Costa is a serial cheat and I don't want serial cheats playing for us, because I want us to win as fairly as possible; though I do agree we need more leaders and players who can tough it out.

I don't think this is about character assassination, and it's certainly not hypocritical to cheer Hugo but not want Costa playing for us.

Usually I would agree with you but I just want to win anyway possible now. I’m completely fed up with the lack of (trophy) success, particularly our record in the FA Cup.

 

[jurgen]

We desperately need a backup striker, and if we’re actually going to ride this Jose train and give him a proper chance then we need to accept the type of character he likes in a squad. Otherwise there’s no point in hiring Mourinho.

So I wouldn’t complain about Costa, even if only god knows what he’ll get up to on the field for us.

 

[Yid-ol]

Chelsea are set to hand Michy Batshuayi, 26, a new deal before offering him out on loan, with Crystal Palace, West Brom and Newcastle keen on the Belgium international

Not sure Chelsea would agree to the loan, but would be s good back up for a year!

 

[spids]

There is a difference between having an edge to your game and a little bit of devil in your play (e.g. Dele, Rooney etc.), and spitting into your hand and flinging it into opponents faces off the ball., and eye gouging or scratching. Not sure Costa is good enough to justify us lowering our standards that far. Ever since seeing the video that tracks Costa off the ball against Real Madrid (and Ramos and Pepe), and all his underhand, disgusting tactics, I have not been a fan. I also think VAR has rendered him impotent - no surprises that the year it was adopted was his most ineffective year as a professional. Performance wise, since the heady days of his 52 goals in 89 appearances for Chelsea, he has only scored 10 La Liga goals in the last 3 seasons (that is combined as well!) since returning to Atletico, and served an 8 game ban just over a year ago for abusing a referee. Chuck in his age and his lack of pace, and I really think he is not the answer to our problems.

 

[sausage]

Not sure Chelsea would agree to the loan, but would be s good back up for a year!

No idea what their business model is. Are they hoping that he might suddenly not be shit when he finally his 28 or 29?

I can only assume they have the same business model as a plant hire firm, what with Batshuayi and Van Ginkel among several others at the moment

 

[y1dk1d]

I know I’m massively in the minority here, but I for one would like to see this happen.

We could do with a horrible bastard and Costa is king at winding up the opposition

 

[Jimbobfury]

He is a decent proven goal scorer in the prem. He is also a right nasty bastard who will rough up a defence. We have not had a player like that in years!

 

[ParkLaneUpper]