In other news, Jose Mourinho continues to act completely oblivious over the blatant thuggery of Diego Costa.

By now, the entire footballing world will be well aware that the Chelsea striker is a nasty piece of work. They’ll have also most likely seen the footage of Costa more or less attacking Laurent Koscielny and then proceeding the leave nasty scratches all over Gabriel’s neck.

However, if you listen to Mourinho on the subject, you’d think that Costa had just walked through burning flames, fought off a dragon and single-handedly marched the entire Chelsea team to victory.

“He played like he has to play and that is why you have full stadiums and you sell football to television around the world for millions and millions,” said the manager. “Because the game has to be played like that, OK? Man of the match, for me.”

Clearly, Jose is just referring to Costa’s aggressive nature, although I’m pretty sure that’s not what sells out football stadiums, and not him trying to smother Koscielny because no manager in their right mind would encourage that publicly.

The thing is, Mourinho knows exactly what Costa’s like; he knows he’s a bully. And as much as he’ll stick up for the man in front of the world’s press, in private I’m not so sure it’s the same story. However, his ‘man of the match’ comment was petulant and unnecessary, which is pretty much Mourinho in a nut shell.