Any time Arsenal meets Diego Costa, there are sure to be sparks. Luckily, this time around, Diego Costa’s ridiculous antics are doomed to fail.
Arsenal‘s cooler heads gave way to the rabid-bear-like behavior of Diego Costa in the clubs’ first meeting last season, as Gabriel was sent off for defending Laurent Koscielny after the Frenchman had his face ripped off.
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The same thing happened in the second match. Per Mertesacker’s sliding tackle, while a poor tackle, lead to a massive flop by the Spaniard, which in turn led to our gentle giant being sent off.
It’s always a matter of keeping eleven guys on the pitch and it feels like it is Costa’s responsibility to get someone sent off.
This time around, I have full confidence that this is not what will happen.
First of all, Gabriel will not be playing. However, I have to defend him here. The red card was later revoked and the suspension was handed to Diego Costa instead, so it was as close to a ‘sorry, we were wrong’ as you can get in the modern footballing world.
Not only that, but Costa was largely figured out last season. His antics in general were not reaping the same rewards from Premier League officials, who by now are keenly aware of what the bush league forward continuously tries to do.
Then there is the matter of who we will have on the pitch. Between Laurent Koscielny and Shkodran Mustafi, Arsenal has two guys that are not only not prone to spats, but they aren’t prone to yellow cards either. Koscielny is not one to garner unwarranted cards and Mustafi has a pretty solid history as well.
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Not only has Mustafi not seen yellow this year, but he hasn’t seen red since 2013. All together, the German has only ever been shown red twice, which is a clear indication that he does not get baited into silly challenges, particularly when on a yellow already.
The only potential problem would be Francis Coquelin, but he won’t likely find himself in too many situations where he is face to face with Costa and even if he does end up there, Wenger has surely covered in detail how to handle his deplorable behavior.
The only thing we actually have to worry about is his torrid pace, scoring five goals in five appearances. Although, to be fair, those goals came against lowly West Ham, Watford, Swansea and a Liverpool side that couldn’t even keep out Arsenal’s hodge-podge attack.
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So yeah, go ahead and put me in the ‘not worried about Diego Costa’ category.
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