Chelsea wins it! As Atletico Madrid agrees to pay £35 million for Diego Costa

Antonio Conte laughing all the way to the bank after selling Diego Costa to Atletico Madrid for £35m profit

Sale of striker is the kind of deal that would have made Rodney and Del Boy proud

AFTER all that, Diego Costa turned out to be worth his weight in gold to Chelsea.
Given his recent approach to fitness, it is no surprise the Spanish striker with a penchant for a party, patatas bravas and a pot belly would command such a hefty fee.

Diego Costa will leave Chelsea with 59 goals, two Premier League titles – and £35million profit

Costa is finally on his way to Atletico Madrid in a deal which could rise to a staggering £67million as long as he can pass the medical, of course.

Atletico could easily recoup the money they have spent by selling tickets for that alone after Costa’s long, lazy summer spent in Brazil.

But he has finally got the move he wants and Chelsea have got the money they want.

Costa’s a winner and manager Antonio Conte is a winner.

The only losers are Atletico Madrid who have paid way over the odds for a fat lad who hasn’t kicked a ball since May –
– they have been sold a proverbial pup that would make Del Boy proud.

It’s as if Costa and Conte cooked it all up between themselves in a scam straight out of Nelson Mandela House.

Brazilian-born Costa, 28, needs to ‘agree’ personal terms yet of course, but any fool knows that was done on a nod and a wink weeks ago.

Just a couple of weeks before his birthday on October 7, Costa will sign a contract for the next four years which will see him right for the rest of his career.

Just a couple of months ago, Conte had no striker worthy to lead his frontline.

He complained that his squad needed to be bigger to cope with the demands of Premier League and European football.

Ross Barkley and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain rejected the chance to join his champions who had lost the opening game of their title defence and had two players sent off.

Now it’s five wins and a draw from six and a squad humming along nicely while owner Roman Abramovich trousers his latest fortune from flogging a dud.

It happened last January, too, when Brazilian midfielder Oscar, bought for £25m in 2012, became surplus to requirements.

Along came Chinese Super League side Shanghai SIPG with money to burn and £60m later Chelsea are waving him off and still nobody’s even noticed he has gone.

Costa's relationship with Antonio Conte soured over the course of the season and the striker had to go

The striker also fell out with previous Blues boss Jose Mourinho

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Atletico Madrid are investing a record amount of money on a promise that Costa will stick to the straight and narrow for the next three months until the club’s transfer ban is lifted and he can play for them.

This is the bloke who is currently having the full-blown nightclub in the conservatory of his Surrey mansion dismantled and shipped to Spain.

The player who admitted returning overweight from his summer holiday in 2015 and never quite got up to speed again.

The fiery Latin who tried to take on Conte via text in June in a dispute over close-season diet plans and saw his career in England brought to an abrupt end.

Costa was the Premier League's chief wind-up merchant in his three years

Diego Costa was hated by rival fans and loved by followers of the Blues

Don’t forget though that while Chelsea may consider themselves the biggest beneficiaries in this whole saga, they will miss his goals and his abrasive personality so effective in winding up opponents.

He scored 22 goals in all-competitions last season, finishing as the top scorer and playing a huge role in winning the title.

Two years before that an even 20 to see Chelsea over the line as champions of England.

The Premier League will be a more boring place without the striker in it
As much as the team will miss his input, English football is going to be a much less colourful place without the brooding star.

Not to mention his stand-up row with ex-boss Jose Mourinho on the pitch in a Champions League match in Israel, the ruck with a fitness coach at the Chelsea training ground at New Year, threatening journalists with a fire extinguisher and showing a heartwarming affection for kids wherever he went.

But business is business and there’s only one word Conte is thinking right now after finally trousering nearly seventy million quid: Cushty.