Today’s behavior should end Diego Costa’s Chelsea career

Chelsea forward Diego Costa has used up all of his chances at Stamford Bridge

Whether you believe Chelsea forward Diego Costa tried to bite Everton midfielder Gareth Barry today, his time at Stamford Bridge should be finished. He’s too much of a liability for Antonio Conte to deal with once he takes the reigns for the Premier League giants.

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In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t think Costa tried to take a bite out of Barry. Getting in the English midfielder’s face and borderline kissing his neck was certainly worthy of his second yellow card, but we aren’t talking about a Luis Suarez sort of problem here.

The problem with Costa is that he completely lost his cool in what was his team’s last chance to gain some measure of glory this season. They were still somewhat in the match against the Toffees at the time of his dismissal, but his second yellow card was the end of any chance his team had. His selfish actions ended the club’s FA Cup run.

This isn’t an isolated incident for Costa, of course. He’s been a lightening rod for controversy throughout his entire football career. He lit up an entire country when he chose to spurn Brazil for Spain in the most recent World Cup and his Chelsea career has been riddled with borderline misconduct on the pitch.

Costa’s preoccupation with getting under his opponent’s skin sincerely hurt his performance earlier in the season under Jose Mourinho. While today was his first dismissal from a match at Chelsea, he’s deserved expulsion several other times.

On his day he is absolutely one of the Premier League’s best strikers. His strength in the box combined with his deft finishing ability makes him downright unplayable at times. His challenge has been focusing more on football and less on conflict on the pitch. When he gets the mix right he’s awesome. When he gets it wrong, he’s an immense liability.

A club with the resources of Chelsea shouldn’t have to take such a big gamble on a player. They can acquire serious talent without having to sacrifice the player’s mental makeup. Roman Abramovich should just go out and buy another front-line striker who comes without the baggage that Costa brings. Even if they have to sacrifice a little bit of talent, they need only rely on mentally stable stars.

Diego Costa helped bring a Premier League title to Chelsea and they should be satisfied with that. Much like his former manager, it’s time that he leave Stamford Bridge in exchange for a more mentally stable replacement.