Happy Hazard after encouraging Chelsea display

It clearly angered Costa, who did not take part in the pre-match warm-up and tossed his bib toward Mourinho as the game neared its conclusion at White Hart Lane. “So for me a number 10 is a very special player in my team”, Mourinho was quoted as saying in the Telegraph. When I decided not to play him, he went (back to the bench).

“Everybody was on the bench”.

Dembele added: “I think everybody can see our mentality and the way we are playing are different”.

‘Not going out for the warm-up, I can understand that completely, but throwing the bib at the manager during the game points to one way.

The Portuguese tactician insisted he has no problems with Costa, but called on the Spain global to start reading the game properly.

“For me his behaviour is normal”. At least it was against rivals Tottenham, and away, but a match featuring zero goals is not normally something that would be associated with best anything for an attacking player who not that long ago was voted the best player in the Premier League by just about everyone.

Ivanovic, Chelsea’s captain in the injury-enforced absence of John Terry, believes Costa will react to his omission from the team in a positive way.

Costa’s sulk was the latest sign of tension between him and Mourinho, coming just a few days after their bust-up during Chelsea’s 4-0 Champions League win at Maccabi Tel Aviv. I was not expecting a player on the bench to be jumping and singing because he is not playing.

“I learned how to live without the happiness of winning matches”, he said. “We all have to think about that”.

Mourinho saw reasons for optimism following the performance and praised Hazard as Chelsea’s “false nine”. I have to study them but the message, not to Diego Costa but to every one of my players, is when we play as a team and defend as a team the team is much better. “I think we start the season as a team and we have to finish as a team”, he said.

Mourhino said Hazard had “his best game of the season” against Spurs and hailed the return of the Belgian’s “appetite” after one of his most encouraging performances where he went close to giving his side the lead in either half.

Asked if he was happy with a draw, in light of the journey to Baku, Pochettino said: “No, not really happy”.

“Before maybe we might have been happy to draw with Chelsea, now we are disappointed”. We deserved more than we got. “We created enough chances to score. It is more important to them than us”.

Tottenham manager Pochettino brought on Erik Lamela ten minutes into the second half, and the Argentine nearly set up Son for a victor with a superb scooped pass into the area, but the Korean again was denied by Begovic in the Chelsea goal.