PL Preview: Will Liverpool Be Left Counting the Costa of a Porous Defence?

One can only hope the politeness espoused this week will not be extended to Friday evening. Less a fixture that has simmered over the past decade or so than spat like a steak thrown onto a scorching well-oiled pan, Chelsea vs. Liverpool is traditionally a game of such ill will it elevates acrimony to an art form.

In days of yore, Jose Mourinho and Rafa Benitez on the same touchline was more toxic than a pair of fractious skunks engaging in a gas-off. Yellow tape replaced chalk to mark out their respective technical areas, while fourth officials were handed overtime and a helmet.

Luis Garcia’s “ghost goal” is still debated with ferocity so partisan a non-football fan listening in could conclude Lubos Michel, the referee in 2005, had not yet made up his mind and was instead weighing up closing speeches. It is a ghost Mourinho has never been able to exorcise fully.

Rivalries forged through genuine dislike as opposed to being assumed due to geographical proximity may lack the same heritage, but they tend to (over) compensate for it in terms of venom, often of the malevolent kind. In the 1970s, Chelsea and Leeds United had a rivalry so X-rated that Hugh Hefner was sometimes sent in as a mediator when things got out of hand.

When former Premier League referee David Elleray watched a rerun of the 1970 FA Cup final between the two clubs, he said he would have sent off six players and booked 20. On the day, there was a solitary caution: Ian Hutchinson of Chelsea.

All of which, admittedly on an infantile level, has made the mutual appreciation and backslapping between Antonio Conte and Jurgen Klopp this week a little disconcerting. In the sanitized goldfish bowl that is the Premier League, a fixture made for Friday nights has traditionally been the kid who takes a leak in a crowded swimming pool. Long may it continue to be unapologetic in its bad behaviour.

Klopp has dubbed his counterpart, via Sky Sports, the “Pep Guardiola of Juventus”, which if not meant as a surreptitious reference to the contentious issue of Conte’s hairline, is quite the compliment. Conte has responded in kind by calling Klopp: “One of the best in the world. I think he is also showing his capacity at Liverpool to be a great manager.”

WATCH: Jurgen Klopp said Antonio Conte is the ‘Pep Guardiola of Juventus’ but how would Conte describe Klopp? #SSNHQ https://t.co/d4g5MUuZP9

— Sky Sports News HQ (@SkySportsNewsHQ) September 15, 2016

The most animated and expressive pair since Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin were miming gestures for laughs may be pals for now, but civility is only ever one Diego Costa mistimed tackle/theatrical fall/pinch/eye gouge (delete where appropriate) away from turning into churlishness. Even if Costa does his best choirboy impersonation, David Luiz on his second Chelsea debut, having returned to the club from Paris Saint-Germain on transfer deadline day, will almost certainly be the proverbial loaded gun from the first minute.

Serenity may prove to be short-lived at Stamford Bridge.

The Premier League’s finest agent provocateur is back to his truculent best having scored four times in as many Premier League matches, picking up three bookings along the way. West Ham United, Watford and Sunday’s opponents Swansea City all felt Costa was fortunate yellow never turned to red for subsequent indiscretions.

He less walks the tightrope of gamesmanship than ties it into a lasso before using it to trip up opponents. It’s often said Costa could start a fight in an empty room, but then why would he enter a room where there is no one to fight? Let him chair a discussion between the Dalai Lama and Kofi Annan and they would probably end up on the floor wrestling having fallen out over who is the most peaceful. Henry Kissinger he is not.

In Conte’s media briefing on Thursday, the assembled press were told the Italian has no plans to temper his striker’s natural game and was “not worried” about his temperament, per the Times. A tackling style based on politician Boris Johnson’s when faced with Japanese children is presumably not a concern either. 

Boris Johnson just wiped out a 10-year-old boy while playing Rugby in Japan http://t.co/gDFUh6cr3N pic.twitter.com/InZAuGqvVs

— Complex UK (@complex_uk) October 15, 2015

Two more bookings will invoke an automatic one-match ban, but given the start Costa has made to the new campaign, it is hardly a surprise Conte—no angel in his own playing days—is largely turning a blind eye to a devilment Chelsea so sorely lacked in last season’s abject title defence. Victory on Friday would take Chelsea to within two wins of matching last term’s embarrassing record of five maximum hauls from 19 home games.

It must be hard to advocate complete calmness when your own matchday routine in kicking every ball funnels Brian Glover’s PE teacher Mr. Sugden in Kes. Thibaut Courtois tends to let him score in training; it’s just easier that way.

Conte sees Costa as more sinned against than sinner. The Swansea game, the first points Chelsea have dropped this season following a 2-2 draw they dominated, lends credence to such rhetoric. No player this season has drawn more fouls than the seven Costa won at the Liberty Stadium, three of which resulted in bookings for Swansea players. His retaliation was a pair of splendidly taken goals.

Costa got the shock of his life when …

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