Guus Hiddink has said he is confident that Chelsea striker Diego
Costa will be fit to start against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions
League on Wednesday.
Costa missed the 1-1 draw with Stoke City on
Saturday through injury but is expected to be back for the round-of-16
second-leg clash with the French champions.
He had appeared likely to lead the Chelsea line against the Potters after Hiddink said on Friday that it was
The
interim boss said prior to kick-off that Costa had suffered a "minor
tendon injury" in training on Friday, and replacement Bertrand Traore "
difficult to put a brake on him." seized his chance to give Chelsea the lead on 39 minutes.
But Mame Diouf equalised in the second half as Stoke rallied to claim their first league point at Stamford Bridge since 1984.
Hiddink
said: "He had a little problem on the tendon, so that's why I was bit
cautious not to take the risk of worsening the situation. I think he
will be OK on Wednesday."
The draw extends Chelsea's unbeaten
Premier League run since Jose Mourinho's departure to 13 matches, and
Hiddink said qualifying for next season's Champions League was
increasingly unlikely.
"It's very difficult or almost impossible, especially when other teams are also knocking on that door," he added.
"Today's
result for West Ham [beating Everton 3-2] for instance, shows they are
knocking on that door as well. On the other hand, we know where we've
come from in December, one point from the relegation zone, and we've
done it in an amazingly short time.
"I'm frustrated because we
conceded a late goal. You can say we started rather sloppy in first
half. After 15, 20 minutes we got more energetic, with more composure,
and we scored a beautiful goal through Traore.
"In the second half
there was one key moment when the penalty wasn't rewarded for Oscar. It
was a clear, clear, clear penalty and I don't often say that.
"It would have been given as a free kick outside the box, but it was waved away.
"But
you can't say that Stoke were not pushing. They got encouragement from
that, they have some very creative players in the attacking part of
their team, so in the end it was a fair result."
Stoke manager Mark Hughes felt a point was the least his side deserved, although he still needed one slice of luck.
"I
was going to take Diouf off just before he scored so it was a little
bit of fortune, but we'll take that," he smiled. "I felt we deserved at
least a point, and arguably you could say we were still hard done by.
"We
had two or three good opportunities in first half which we didn't
convert, and lo and behold we got done by sucker punch against the run
of play.
"That can sometimes deflate you, but at half-time we got the opposite reaction and the second half was more of the same."
sources-ESPN
