LONDON -- Diego Costa will be fit for Chelsea's Premier League clash with Middlesbrough on Sunday despite withdrawing from Spain duty with a groin injury, manager Antonio Conte has confirmed.
Costa has been working intensively with medical staff at Cobham since pulling out of Julen Lopetegui's squad last Friday, with Chelsea eager to have the Premier League's top scorer available for the trip to the Riverside Stadium.
Eden Hazard is also fully fit despite taking what Belgium coach Roberto Martinez called "a kick on the calf" during the closing stages of Sunday's 8-1 victory over Estonia, while Cesc Fabregas is available again after recovering from a thigh injury picked up before last month's 3-0 win over Leicester City.
"I have all the players available [for Middlesbrough]," Conte said. "They are in good form. Costa had a bit of an injury after the game against Everton, and started to train with us on Wednesday. But his physical condition is good.
"There is also tomorrow to see perfectly the situation. But, at the moment, he can play. Hazard is fit, yes. [It was] only a tackle, but he recovered very well.
"I'm always worried when I see that there is a probability that one player of my team, of my squad, is not able to play the [next] game.
"When there is an international break you are a bit worried for your players... but it's important to play for the national team. Until now, so far, we were lucky because no one player came back from the national team injured."
On Fabregas, he added: "Now he is in good shape. He's available for Sunday, for sure."
Chelsea's clean bill of health after the international break means that Conte can continue to be cautious with the recovery of Kurt Zouma, who will play again for the club's U23 squad in the Premier League 2 against Southampton on Monday.
John Terry is also set to remain on the bench. Chelsea have kept five consecutive Premier League clean sheets in his absence since Conte's decision to switch to a 3-4-3 formation, but the Italian insists that his captain still has an important role to play in the club's revival.
"John is in good shape," Conte added when asked about Terry. "He can play in this [3-4-3] formation easily.
"I'm happy to have this availability of [all] the central defenders. It's important that Kurt [Zouma] is back with us and, in training, he's in good form. But it's normal that, when you arrive after a bad injury, you need a bit of time to recover the best form.
"For this reason, we prefer Kurt in this period to play the games with the U23s. On Monday he plays with the U23s. It's important to have game time in this period. It's good, it's fantastic, to have another good player like Kurt available again."