Diego Costa admitted he was “scared to death”. Not, admittedly, by the prospect of Premier League defenders, by the sight of a fixture list that could contain clashes with such frightening figures as John Stones, Cesar Azpilicueta and Steve Cook; after all, the heyday of the hatchet man has passed, with most outlawed into extinction by more stringent refereeing.
No, perhaps the most deliberately intimidating striker in recent Premier League history was terrified by his co-stars in a moody masterpiece of an unveiling video: a pack of wolves. “Holding that chain, I kept thinking, 'What if this wolf thinks about jumping on top of me?' and then three of them did,” Costa said; a debut against Manchester City on Saturday is only possible because he survived the experience.
