Diego Costa will be the latest Chelsea player to wear a facemask when the Blues take on Newcastle after breaking his nose in training during the week, interim boss Guus Hiddink has confirmed.
Costa has flown to Milan to be fitted for the protective mask that will allow him to feature against the Magpies on Saturday.
The Spain international suffered the injury in a duel with 18-year-old youth team player Fikayo Tomori in training, but he is still expected to feature at the weekend.
“Yesterday, in training, Diego got in a duel and had his nose broken. It was one of the youngsters of the academy, who we like to participate," Hiddink is quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph.
“It was not a tough duel, but he put his nose on the back of the kid’s head. He was very unlucky and his nose was broken. He will return today. They’ll try and give him a mask as well – we are a team with a lot of masks.
“A Zorro team – Azpi [Cesar Azpilicueta], [Nemanja] Matic, now Diego. He will come back and do some light training in the afternoon because he must experience how he deals with the mask. Then he will join us in the hotel later on.”
The news Costa has not been ruled out for the fixture will come as a huge boost to Hiddink, who is already without Radamel Falcao and Loic Remy because of injury. The Chelsea frontman is currently in fine form, having started the season poorly.
In fact, Costa has played a direct part in 10 goals in his last nine games for Chelsea, having only managed to play a hand in five of his previous 22 matches this season.
For more stats on Diego Costa, click here to visit his WhoScored player page
