Chelsea could see Diego Costa….in January

“If he wants to hurt me, it’s not with a bib”, Mourinho said.

“For me his behaviour is normal”.

‘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. “I have a good relationship with him”, Mourinho told reporters in his post match press conference.

Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic says that Diego Costa will come back “strongly” after being dropped by manager Jose Mourinho.

Despite the absences of Loic Remy and Radamel Falcao, Eden Hazard was used as Chelsea’s furthest forward attacker in the goalless north London derby – rather than last season’s top scorer.

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.

The Blues have now kept two EPL clean sheets in November following their 1-0 win over Norwich last weekend, not forgetting their 4-0 win over Maccabi Tel-Aviv in midweek’s UCL game.

However, that didn’t stop the Portuguese dropping Costa to the bench at White Hart Lane, with Mourinho beforehand suggesting that the player needed a breather.

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.

Mourinho described the visitors’ display as “the best Chelsea performance of the season”, but opposite number Mauricio Pochettino was frustrated that Spurs had not emerged victorious.

“We have to feel happy”.

Tottenham have conceded just three goals in their Premier League games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, leaders Manchester City and rivals United this season.

“I think everybody can see our mentality and the way we are playing is different”, he is quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph. It was not always easy but we did a good job and tried to score. “We all have to think about that”. It’s a good thing that, maybe, we are a bigger club than Chelsea or that we deserve more.

“No, not really happy”, Pochettino said.

“We try to take game after game and win game after game”.