Jose Mourinho reveals half time row with Diego Costa which sparked strikers

Jose Mourinho has played down a half-time argument with Diego Costa during Chelsea’s Champions League at Maccabi Tel-Aviv, saying that the pair had a “kiss and cuddle” to make up.

“But when I have Hazard with 90 minutes against Norwich [last] Saturday and 70 minutes against Maccabi on a pitch that doesn’t help, and I have Pedro fresh and I see the Maccabi right-back in trouble, exhausted and with cramps”. He did too. At half-time in the dressing room, a few kisses and a few cuddles.

“No problem”, said Mourinho, who also confirmed that skipper John Terry is a major doubt for Sunday’s Premier League clash at Tottenham after being carried off on a stretcher with an ankle injury.

‘Ramires slid and has a muscular injury. “The surface was bad and unsafe”.

“For the group I need a calculator, ‘ said Mourinho”.

“In the first-team squad we have seven under-21 players who have 26 starts and 12 substitute appearances this season, and 43 appearances on the bench (when they were) not used”, Mourinho said. The boss tells his team’s news site this week “We have in front of us two games and we want six points if we have the opportunity of playing next spring in the Europa League. We tried to protect ourselves by only training a little bit on it but to my surprise Maccabi trained on it after us, plus there was the warm-up before the game, so the pitch was really bad”.

However, Costa completed the match, and Mourinho quickly denied any talk of any lasting damage after the game.

“I think we played better matches than today, but we lost”.

While the exact extent of either injury is known at this time, Mourinho’s not counting with his captain.

“I prefer to think we have to win our match”.

Chelsea are three points behind leaders Porto and two points clear of Dynamo Kiev, with Maccabi yet to record a win in Champions League Group G.