Jose Mourinho will sell Diego Costa claims Mark Bosnich

But, the bib missed Mourinho by a couple of inches and he joked in his post-match press conference that if Costa indeed wanted to hurt him, he would not do it with a training bib.

“I’m very happy with the performance and the team played well”.

“I was looking for the victor, but without him”, said Mourinho, who sent on Kenedy and Ruben Loftus-Cheek in the dying moments of the match.

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho denied any rift with Diego Costa despite the striker’s unhappy reaction to being dropped to the bench for the scoreless draw at Tottenham Hotspur. Everyone has been on the bench – the captain [John] Terry, [Branislav] Ivanovic, [Gary] Cahill, [Cesc] Fabregas, Pedro and player of the season [Eden] Hazard.

“It is a good result, we didn’t have many good chances but Lloris made a good save from me”. I am happy with my decision and the players. “If I score there it’s 1-0 and it could have been a win for us if that goes in”.

But did that leave them any worse-off than they have looked in recent weeks: with Costa being driven out wide, hanging back on the edge of a box, and contributing nothing but attitude to the game?

“I don’t know what his problem is, it’s not as if he’s scoring goals and doing well”, the former England global said. He’s always a positive guy in the team.

“I felt Eden could play for 90 minutes, he was so good, so risky, so hard for them to get at him that I don’t want to change the team”, he explained.

“His behaviour was normal”.

Tottenham lost Ryan Mason to injury during the second half and the manager hopes the midfielder will not be ruled out long term.

“Today we thought the best strategy to play was this one”.

“He did fantastically well for the team”.

“We have the team again, and we look to the future with a better spirit. Why change if we think we can not improve?”

Just five days back, the pair had a blazing row on the pitch at half-time of their win against Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Champions League. “I am convinced at the end of December we will be in a different position than we are now and shorten the distance to the top teams, and our feeling will be different”.