Arsenal vs Chelsea: Guus Hiddink backs Diego Costa’s spirit as gloves come off

Hiddink refused to be drawn on whether he would have taken a similar decision to Jose Mourinho in demoting Cech

(Getty Images)

Before the fury… the gentle sound of catch-up chat, and some friendly humour. Petr Cech took the surprising decision to turn up at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground on Wednesday to pick up gloves mistakenly sent there rather than Arsenal’s London Colney base, allowing him the chance to have a catch-up chat with his old manager Guus Hiddink ahead of tomorrow’s game at the Emirates.

Hiddink, who managed Cech in his first spell at Chelsea in 2009, joked that he tried to hide the gloves – sent to the wrong place by the goalkeeper’s sponsors – and make them slippery, but otherwise just had a “nice” talk.

“I was here,” Hiddink said. “It was late in the afternoon when Petr showed up here. It was nice. We had a chat here. Almost everyone had gone. He knew the gloves were here and we tried to hide them, which we did. We also tried to make them a little bit slippery, but he discovered that also. They were wrongly sent here, but we gave them back.”

Hiddink refused to be drawn on whether he would have taken a similar decision to Jose Mourinho in demoting Cech, while conceding that Thibaut Courtois “had to play”, but otherwise he spoke glowingly about the 33-year-old Czech, saying he was “among the top [goalkeepers] in the world”.

The friendly scene between the two, which sounds more like the days of the 1960s when Matt Busby and Bill Shankly would meet up despite managing clubs on either side of the Liverpool-Manchester divide, was in stark contrast to the raucous atmosphere that will prevail at the Emirates tomorrow.

The home crowd are certain to boo the former Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas and, in particular, Diego Costa. The striker is fit to resume hostilities with a side he has sparked such controversy against. Costa was at the centre of a series of incidents in Chelsea’s 2-0 win over Arsenal in September, ultimately getting Gabriel Paulista sent off. That led to fierce criticism of the Spain international, but Hiddink defended him yesterday as a “joy to everyone” off the pitch and said he would rather have a player in his squad that he has to hold back than one who has to be motivated.

“I’d prefer to have players who sometimes you have to control or tell them ‘a little bit less’ than have to push them a bit,” the Dutch manager said of Costa. “He has his character. Sometimes you are misjudged by images. But, off the pitch, they seem the most vulnerable [figures]. He shows a lot of joy to everyone.

“I observe the players when they are in the canteen, dealing with people who prepare the pitches, not snobby or arrogant... that’s good to see. They’re different characters off the pitch. On the pitch they have that desperate will to win, almost at any cost. That’s a slight change in character and behaviour.”

Hiddink added that the overall character of the present Chelsea squad was different from the one he took charge of in 2009. “I’m not talking about the skill or individual quality, but the spine I had was different to now. I don’t want to go back too much in the past because we must not over-value or be too romantic about the past, but that was a strong spine: JT [John Terry], Alex, Frankie [Lampard], [Michael] Ballack and [Didier] Drogba. The rest were also strong. Saying that, I don’t want to minimise our quality nowadays, but they’re different players.”

Hiddink does believe a win tomorrow can re-ignite his struggling team’s season. “This club is used to thinking about being top three or four in England. Winning these games might bring confidence to the club and the team to ask, ‘Hey, where do we belong?’ And think about why this team has fallen so deeply in the recent period.”