Football
ESPN staff 7y

Diego Costa returns to Chelsea team to face Hull City in Premier League

Diego Costa has been named in Chelsea's starting XI for Sunday's Premier League game against Hull City, replacing Willian who drops to the bench.

It was also confirmed by the club that the fixture will be his 100th appearance for them.

Costa, 28, missed the 3-0 win against Leicester City last week amid reports that he wanted to take a lucrative offer to move to the Chinese Super League.

Antonio Conte told reporters following that game that he was not aware of the transfer speculation and insisted Costa was injured.

"I don't know about this," the Chelsea manager said. "The truth is what I told you before, and we will see in the next week [about his fitness ahead of Hull]."

It was reported that Costa was training alone, but he returned to training with the first-team squad on Tuesday and a number of images have been shared on social media showing him smiling alongside his Chelsea teammates.

Thibaut Courtois told Sky Sports that Chelsea have not been destabilised by rumours about Costa's future and insisted the players never doubted the striker's commitment.

Spain international Costa is the club's top goal scorer this season with 14 goals in 19 appearances but Chelsea have won comfortably in the two games he has missed, with Eden Hazard, Pedro and Willian as a front three.

Chelsea team: Thibaut Courtois, Cesar Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Gary Cahill, Victor Moses, N'Golo Kante, Nemanja Matic, Marcos Alonso, Pedro, Diego Costa, Eden Hazard.

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