Chelsea v PSG - Blanc and Hiddink talk of the man who could make the difference - Diego Costa.

Tonight Chelsea face PSG in the biggest game of our season so far and we are looking for a big players to shine, none more so than Diego Costa and he has the chance to be the difference.

As we know, up to the return of Guus Hiddink at the club, Costa had built himself a reputation of looking for a fight as much as scoring goals as demonstrated in the latter part of Jose Mourinho's tenure. Costa had lost his way, stopped scoring consistently and we would watch him drift out to the left wing where he couldn't influence the game.

The betting markets have it too close to call so you would be better of heading to grykasyno.biz rather than try and seperate the teams but PSG will come to Stamford Bridge tonight expecting the Costa of old and will look to David Luiz and Thiago Silva to provoke him, to try and get inside his head and to wind him up despite Laurent Blanc's insistence that it's not the case. He said:

"There are two facets to Diego Costa: the player and the man. The player I like very much, a centre-forward who can score a lot of goals, has good movement, who works hard for the team. I’m a big fan of the player.

We also know the man, a man who likes contact, duels, challenges, even provocation at times. That’s part of his game. We saw that last year. He’s a player used to playing like that. He doesn’t just do that against PSG. 

I’ll tell my players not to respond to that. We have to keep cool in the face of provocation, even if they are Brazilians. We cannot respond to provocation, from Diego Costa or anyone else.”

As we have seen previously, PSG's Social Media account are doing their best to provoke Chelsea with "banter" by describing Costa as a "fraud" ahead of the game and I am sure Hiddink will use this to motivate Costa in the right way.

Speaking of Costa in his pre-match press conference, Guus Hiddink had this to say about a striker reborn under him. He said:

"He has behaved very well for me. I am very proud of him and the way he is playing, and what he has done. He is not going over the edge but he likes to fight in the real way of the game, and that is what we like. I protect him and support him when he is doing what he has done in my period at Chelsea.

He had a little bit of a problem at the weekend, which is why he didn’t play. But he was in training today. He has scored recently in the Premier League. He’s frequently scoring since December and January. Let’s see, and hope he can make it on a European level as well.”

Hiddink is right, under him Costa has been outstanding because he has altered his game and changed the way he approaches things. We no longer see Costa drifting out wide left and staying there, we no longer see Costa looking for a fight at every opportunity and as a result, we have seen him back on the score sheet consistently.

It's the Champions League, it's the games the big players want to play in and it's chance for players such as Diego Costa to shine. He needs to do the same as he has been, to concentrate on the football and to look to dominate Luiz and Silva as we know he can.

Diego Costa has been outstanding of late. He works his arse off, he focuses on the team and not just himself and at Southampton after Branislav Ivanovic scored the winner, showed exactly what it means to him in a Chelsea shirt.

Come on Diego, give us that passion once again channelled the right way and put this lot to the sword as we owe them from last season. This is your chance to shine!

COME ON CHELSEA!