Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho said Diego Costa was likely to be out for at least two weeks after his hamstring problem resurfaced during Saturday’s 2-1 win over Stoke City.
The striker, 26, pulled up 10 minutes after coming on as a half-time substitute for Oscar at Stamford Bridge, with the score 1-1.
Didier Drogba came on as a hobbling Costa — Chelsea’s top scorer this season with 20 goals — was escorted off the pitch and down the tunnel by members of the club’s medical staff.
“For sure, with that injury it will be a couple of weeks minimum,” Mourinho said.
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Costa has been bedevilled by hamstring trouble for a year, having been forced off after nine minutes of former club Atletico Madrid’s 4-1 loss to Real Madrid in last season’s Champions League final in Lisbon.
He injured his hamstring in Chelsea’s 3-2 win at Hull City prior to the international break, forcing him to withdraw from Spain’s squad for their games against Ukraine and the Netherlands.
But Mourinho defended his decision to thrust Costa back into action.
“If my medical department decides to take four weeks to recover Diego this would not happen, but in football we need risks,” he said.
“I risk sometimes, as a manager, in a result I don’t like. We played more offensive and if the opponent scores, I don’t kill myself for that.
“But in all the scans they did two days ago the muscle was clear, the image was clear and the player trained twice 100 per cent, when he did much more than he did today.
“We put him in dozens of actions and the result was correct. My medical department is fantastic so there is no problem. Next week Remy and Drogba play, and we wait for Costa again.”
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Day 4, Dubai Test: At a glance
Moment of the day Lahiru Gamage appeared to have been hard done by when he had his dismissal of Sami Aslam chalked off for a no-ball. Replays suggested he had not overstepped. No matter. Two balls later, the exact same combination – Gamage the bowler and Kusal Mendis at second slip – combined again to send Aslam back.
Stat of the day Haris Sohail took three wickets for one run in the only over he bowled, to end the Sri Lanka second innings in a hurry. That was as many as he had managed in total in his 10-year, 58-match first-class career to date. It was also the first time a bowler had taken three wickets having bowled just one over in an innings in Tests.
The verdict Just 119 more and with five wickets remaining seems like a perfectly attainable target for Pakistan. Factor in the fact the pitch is worn, is turning prodigiously, and that Sri Lanka’s seam bowlers have also been finding the strip to their liking, it is apparent the task is still a tough one. Still, though, thanks to Asad Shafiq and Sarfraz Ahmed, it is possible.
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
