RUUD GULLIT
Ruud Gullit says he would love to have played with Diego
Costa during his time at Chelsea, with the former Stamford Bridge favourite
describing the striker as a 'handful'.
Chelsea moved up to fourth in the
Premier League on Sunday courtesy of a comfortable 2-0 win at Southampton,
meaning they remain just a point behind co-leaders Manchester City, Arsenal and
Liverpool.
Costa scored his 40th Premier League
goal to hand Chelsea clear daylight against the Saints, after Eden Hazard's
early opener, with the Spain international reaching the milestone in 64 games -
the sixth fastest since the league's inception in 1992.
Gullit - who made 49 league
appearances as a player for the Blues and also enjoyed a 49 per cent win record
as manager - admitted that playing with Costa would have been a dream scenario.
'His work rate opens spaces for
you,' Gullit said in his role as a pundit on Match of the Day 2. 'When you're a striker, you
know that if he goes right, you go left because all the attention goes to him.
'He's a handful and I'd like to play
with a player like this.'
Costa had just nine touches inside
the first 30 minutes at St Mary's, three in the opposition half and only one
coming inside Southampton's penalty area.
But his influence on the early
proceedings on the south coast gave his side the platform for their fourth
league win on the bounce, and Chelsea have now gone 410 minutes without
conceding a league goal.
Kevin Kilbane joined Gullit in the
BBC studio on Sunday night, and the former Republic of Ireland and Everton
winger was impressed with Costa's work rate off the ball.
'But he had such an influence on the
game, off the back of not even touching the ball at times. His work rate, you
understand from the clips you see from Costa. His runs took (Virgil) Van Dijk
away to free up the space for Pedro.
'You can see why the flair players
in Chelsea’s side like him so much. He creates opportunities for himself by
just seeing the space.
'Everything he does is with real
purpose. When the ball was given away, he wanted to be that first guy to
go and win it back.
'Chelsea have this momentum about
them at the moment They out-worked Southampton today, and at times they sat
deep which was unusual for them.'
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