Is Jose Mourinho Employing Mind Games Once More over Diego Costa Injury?

Jose Mourinho revealed this week that Diego Costa’s hamstring troubles have evolved from an “almost injury” into a problem that will see him sit out two games in a row for Chelsea, per Tony Banks of the Express. Having been left out of the squad which beat Crystal Palace 2-1 in the Premier League, Costa is also set to miss the Champions League tie with NK Maribor.

The Special One said before the international break that Costa could do with being left out of Vicente del Bosque’s Spain squad for the Euro 2016 qualifiers, per Matt Barlow at the Mail on Sunday:

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If he doesn’t go to the national team, and stays here 15 days on treatment, recovering and making the muscle and the areas around muscle stronger, he has the perfect chance to be top for Chelsea and top for national team. 

If he doesn’t have this period, he will be always play one game and then be in trouble for the next one. The muscle is tight and the muscle is in danger to have a rupture.

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The striker seemed to have escaped unscathed after scoring in Spain’s win over Luxembourg, with reports that he had shunned Mourinho’s offer of extra rest and reported for training at Cobham last Monday, per Matt Lewis at getwestlondon.

However, Mourinho revealed at his press conference, per The Guardian's Jacob Steinberg, ahead of the Champions League game that Costa will be out for an unspecified period of time, saying:  "It’s simple. He’s not training because he’s not in condition to do so. I have no idea how long. Tomorrow he cannot play. The weekend is not important but he cannot play tomorrow."

If you take the manager at his word, this is a worrying state of affairs for Chelsea. Costa has been on an excellent run of form since joining the club in the summer, and despite their proven ability to win without him, it is always preferable to have your best performing players on the pitch.

Jamie McDonald/Getty Images

However, Mourinho’s refusal to reveal the extent of Costa’s full-blown hamstring injury, per Steinberg, suggests that there is more to this story than meets the eye.

For starters, Costa has been a doubt for many of the games he has starred in this season. He was ruled out of the 6-3 win over Everton in which he scored twice, and it was touch and go as to whether he’d be fit to play against Swansea City. It turned out he was, so much so in fact that he netted his first hat-trick in a 4-2 victory.

Mourinho addressed this disparity between pre-match news and actual events when he told Matt Law at The Telegraph:

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Diego was a risk and a doubt before Everton, a risk and a doubt before Spain, a risk and a doubt before this Swansea game and he played all three games. ...

I tried to rest him, I tried to be sure. To be 100 per cent sure, but he goes on. He is a fantastic character. If the injury is a clear injury of course he will not play, but when the doubt is there and he has not the best feelings, but he feels he can play, he goes on.

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Turning up for training 48 hours before the boss expected him to would suggest that Costa felt fine last Monday, and the timing of this announcement makes it more questionable.

Chelsea’s fixture list before the next international break includes trips to Manchester United and Liverpool, a London derby against QPR and a schlep across Europe to face NK Maribor in Slovenia. Although there are no easy games in football, Crystal Palace away followed by Maribor at home afforded Mourinho the best opportunity to rest his striker without causing too much trouble to Chelsea’s early-season chances.

Mourinho has a history of playing mind games with the press. It has become part of his charm, and he admitted in February that almost everything he says is designed to cause confusion.

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Mourinho: 'Everything I say and do are mind games. The only thing that is not mind games are the results.' #CFC

— Chelsea FC (@chelseafc) February 7, 2014"

There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of his assertion that Costa will miss the Champions League tie against Maribor, but if Manchester United supporters are hoping that the striker will miss Sunday’s Premier League clash they could be disappointed.

We won’t know whether Mourinho has been exaggerating the extent of Costa’s injury until the lineup for Sunday’s clash at Old Trafford is announced. The Special One has always used his masterful manipulation skills to engineer situations to his advantage, and it would be remiss to take it for granted that he is not doing the same this time.

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