TERRACE TALK: Chelsea - Sulky Diego Costa should heed Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester

It’s been a long, long time since Chelsea travelled to White Hart Lane as underdogs. In days gone by, collecting three points from Tottenham was just one of life’s certainties — and for many Chelsea fans, the highlight of the season.

So given our disastrous start to the season, I was more than a little concerned yesterday, despite our recent encouraging signs of revival.

I didn’t like some of the comments coming out of Mourinho ahead of the game — it sounded to me like he was getting his excuses in early. Then there was John Terry’s injury. If anyone knows how important this game was, he did, and I was counting on him to ensure every one of those players sweated blood if need be.

On that point, I found out that JT hadn’t even travelled with the team but watched the game elsewhere in the company of Frank Lampard — call me old-fashioned but for me the captain travels with the team unless absolutely physically impossible to do so.

I do wonder if this too was a Mourinho edict — trying to slowly release the team’s reliance on him. I do sometimes think that we look upon him a bit like the ravens at the Tower of London — should he ever leave, Stamford Bridge itself would fall.

Anyway, I needn’t have worried. Our slow and measured renaissance continued. Mourinho understood this game could not be lost. We are taking small steps forward and could not afford any steps back so we perhaps sacrificed some attacking play to remain solid (although you can’t really be accused of sacrificing attacking play when you have Hazard, Pedro, Oscar and Willian all on the pitch).

So three games undefeated, three clean sheets, Hazard beginning to shine again (albeit without the goals of last season). It’s a big corner, but we finally seem to be making our way around it.

Given many pundits are predicting big things for this Tottenham side (I can’t see it), a draw, where I felt we dominated, was a pretty good result. The difference between dominating and winning was a striker, and here we definitely have problems that need addressing, one way or another.

Costa can lay on the supermarket floor pounding his fists all he likes, but if you are not scoring, nor contributing in any other way, then the manager has to look at what other options he has, even if one of those options is to play with no recognised strikers at all.

Rather than the childish bib throwing, Costa would do better to watch the workrate and commitment of the likes of Willian and Pedro. He needs to think very carefully how Mourinho had granted Remy paternal leave to be with his new arrival and still chose to put Costa on the bench. There is a clear message there.

I’m a big fan of Costa’s passion and although we all like to see a player upset at not playing, this is not the right time for a public display of petulance. All the reports of divisions in the dressing room are finally beginning to go away so this, at best, is ill-timed.

The next two weeks are pretty pivotal for us. We have a huge game with Porto which will determine whether we proceed in the Champions League, and so could potentially determine Mourinho’s eventual fate, while we have games against Bournemouth and Leicester which are important for different reasons.

Bournemouth are relegation fodder and if we lose to them, then it would seem that are problems are bigger than we imagine. But Leicester are another story. A demonstration of what a team ethic can do. With all the best will in the world, there is not a pundit, fan or football expert who could have predicted the season that Leicester are enjoying and how can you begrudge them their hour in the sun, especially with Claudio Ranieri at the helm — one of the game’s good guys.

They are there through hard work, team work, and a growing confidence — something we have lacked all season. When Jamie Vardy set a new Premier League consecutive scoring record this weekend, he would still rather talk of the team as a whole and what they were achieving rather than his personal amazing achievement. Bet you wouldn’t find him chucking bibs in a fit of pique.

Our players need to look at themselves and rediscover belief in their own talent, confidence in their team-mates and knowledge we still have the best manager in the world. Only then can we hope to start to aspire to the dizzying heights we know we are capable of.