By Toby Prince
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho said striker Diego Costa was the man of the match in his side’s 2-0 win over nine-man Arsenal on Saturday.
Kurt Zouma and Eden Hazard’s deflected shot secured the win, but the Brazil-born Spanish striker was heavily involved throughout the match at Stamford Bridge.
He clashed with Gabriel Paulista, with both players booked by referee Mike Dean in the first half, before the Arsenal defender was given a straight red card for flicking a boot at Costa.
Speaking after the fixture, Mourinho said: “Good victory, we need to win matches. We won twice in three days, we kept two clean sheets. We controlled the matches.
“I don’t have a view on the sending off. Man of the match for sure was Diego Costa. He brought everything to the game.”
He added: “The game is about all different aspects. The technical, emotional, physical and with a combination of these factors normally the best team wins. We were the best team. We were dominant, we were in control.
“I played my first derby as manager in September 2000 and I remember my words to my players. To win the derby — emotional control. I always repeat the same words before derbies.
“For me it was a fantastic performance [from Costa]. He played the game like the game has to be played. He’s fast, he’s aggressive and he’s good to recover the ball and offers us different qualities.”
Kurt Zouma netted the first Premier League goal of his career to send the home team in front at Stamford Bridge.
Calum Chambers deflected Hazard’s shot into his own net deep into second-half injury-time as Chelsea secured their first home win of the season to move up, at least temporarily, into the top half of the Premier League table.
Santi Cazorla also saw red, but it will be Costa who steals the headlines in the Sunday newspapers.
The former Atletico Madrid striker spent the whole first half needling his markers, shoving his fingers and his palm into the face of Laurent Koscielny and bumping the chest of Gabriel, and the Chelsea striker could have had three yellow cards in the opening 45 minutes.
But the naive Gabriel was unable to check his temper in the face of such overt gamesmanship, and flicked out at Costa in first-half injury-time to earn a red card.
The home side took the lead six minutes into the second half when Zouma, preferred at the back to club captain John Terry, took advantage of last man Koscielny’s failure to play the offside trap in tandem with his defensive colleagues, and headed Cesc Fabregas’ perfectly-weighted cross past Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech.
Cazorla was then shown a second yellow card for a late challenge on Fabregas in the 79th minute, as Arsenal went down to nine men in a Premier League match for the first time since a North London 2-1 derby defeat at Tottenham in 1999.
And, now with a two-man advantage, Chelsea doubled their lead in second-half injury-time as Eden Hazard’s effort from the edge of the box hit Chambers and squirted past the unsighted Cech.
There was no handshake between the managers at the final whistle as Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger stormed down the tunnel, although there was a warm hug between Chelsea substitute Terry and Mourinho.
A disgruntled Wenger said of Costa after the match: “I think it’s unacceptable what he does to Koscielny. He pushes him down; he hits him in the face. I do not understand Mike Dean’s decision at all. Why does Diego Costa stay on the pitch and Gabriel is sent off?”
He added he felt Costa always acted belligerently and often got away with it.
“He will do the same next week and it’s always the same, he is always provoking.”
