<\/p>\n
Chelsea are in pole position to sign Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa in a staggering \u00a340million deal this summer.<\/p>\n
Jose Mourinho’s search for a top-class centre-forward has been narrowed down and he is ready to take the plunge on the Spain international.<\/p>\n
Chelsea watched him again on Wednesday evening in action for Atletico Madrid during their La Liga clash against Granada as their interest in the forward steps up.<\/p>\n
Costa, 25, has an eye-catching goalscoring record in Spain and has helped Atletico reach the Champions League quarter-final against Barcelona.<\/p>\n
Negotiations will be complex and delicate because Atletico want to complete the permanent signing of keeper Thibaut Courtois, who is on loan from Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n
Courtois is part of the succession planning at Chelsea for Petr Cech and Mourinho is unlikely to sanction his sale.<\/p>\n
Although an emotional return to Atletico could appeal to Fernando Torres, the Spanish side prefer to sign young players with huge sell-on fees.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Chelsea have a decision to make over the futures of Torres, Samuel Eto’o and Demba Ba at the end of the season, but Costa will be first choice if Chelsea land him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Brazilian-born striker is also expected to be named in Spain’s World Cup squad after becoming a naturalised citizen. He made his debut for Spain on March 5 in a friendly against Italy.<\/p>\n
Chelsea want firepower next season and Costa is a raw, lethal goalscorer.\u00a0There are no frills about his game, but he has been scouted relentlessly by the club this season.<\/p>\n
With the exception of Didier Drogba, Chelsea’s record of signing strikers has not been good over the years.<\/p>\n
Hernan Crespo, Adrian Mutu, Mateja Kezman, Andriy Shevchenko and Fernando Torres have all been brought in during the Roman Abramovich era.<\/p>\n
They are desperate for one of them to succeed and are convinced that Costa’s goalscoring instincts will benefit the team in their second season under Mourinho.<\/p>\n
Chelsea are in pole position to sign Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa in a staggering \u00a340million deal this summer. Jose Mourinho’s search for a top-class centre-forward has been narrowed down and he is ready to take the plunge on the Spain international. Chelsea watched him again on Wednesday evening in action for Atletico Madrid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3060"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3062,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3060\/revisions\/3062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}