Chelsea hamstrung by loss of Diego Costa

José Mourinho expects to be without his leading goalscorer, Diego Costa, until May at the earliest as the Spain forward recovers from his latest hamstring injury, sustained against Stoke City last weekend.

Costa, who has been dogged by hamstring problems all season, had missed Spain’s games against Ukraine and the Netherlands over the recent international window to undergo treatment after suffering a strain in the win at Hull last month. He began on the bench last Saturday and was introduced at the interval, only to pull up after 11 minutes having damaged the hamstring yet again.

While Mikel John Obi has recovered from a knee problem and Cesc Fàbregas will feature against Queens Park Rangers wearing a mask after breaking his nose in a clash with Charlie Adam, Costa will be the only absentee for the Premier League leaders at Loftus Road on Sunday. "Only Diego is injured," he said. "Everybody else is fine and ready. Mikel ready, Fàbregas with a mask but ready too. No problems."

Asked if Costa will feature again this season given the regularity of his hamstring strains, Mourinho stressed: “Certainly. For sure. But I’m not concerned, not concerned. I don’t want to think about it for two or three weeks, until he’s ready to play. That’s my approach. I’m not going to cry about it until he can play. You know, I think we have eight matches to play. If he plays four, it’s normal. If he plays three, it’s a little bit below what I’m expecting. If he plays five, it’s more than I’m expecting. I’m thinking about four matches to play.”

That would leave the 26-year-old targeting the visit of Crystal Palace to Stamford Bridge on 3 May, most likely ruling him out of the games against QPR, Manchester United, Arsenal and Leicester City. The player underwent scans this week on his left leg which revealed a tear, though Chelsea will only decide how best to treat the problem long-term at the end of the current campaign. The club are reluctant to put the £32m forward under the knife.

That may still end up the likeliest option for them to pursue. Costa, whose impact for Atlético Madrid in last season's Champions League final had been nullified by a hamstring injury, was hampered severely in the autumn by the issue, missing three weeks after the October internationals and being rested for Spain's fixtures in November entirely after tweaking the muscle.

Mourinho would not be drawn on Chelsea's ongoing interest in the FC Tokyo forward Yoshinori Muto. "I don't make bids, and I'm not thinking about it," he said. "I know a little of him. I don't think it's nice for me to think about a player who plays for FC Tokyo. If the FC Tokyo coach spoke about my players I wouldn't be happy. But in modern football, when football is a business and an industry, you have to think about the financial situation: especially a club like Chelsea, who want to be in the rules and within financial fair play. It's important for us.

“In modern management, you cannot close completely the door to a little bit of commercial interests. But we are a football club. We want to win matches and trophies. We don’t buy players if we don’t believe a player is a good player or a good prospect, that’s for sure. A football club is always a football club and a top club only has space for very good players, or at least very good prospects. So no, we would never bring a player if he has no capacity to be in the squad for Chelsea FC.”

Guardian Service