Everton made an unsuccessful bid for Diego Costa back in August, but he left the Premier League for a return to La Liga with Atletico Madrid instead.
There surely have not been many better centre-forward performances in Europe this season than Diego Costa’s against Arsenal in Thursday night’s Europa League semi-final second leg at the Wanda Metropolitano.
The scourge of Arsenal during his time with Chelsea, Costa popped up one last time to give Arsene Wenger nightmares. He scored the only goal in a 1-0 win which secured Atletico Madrid’s place in the final in Lyon.
But it was not just the well-taken finish on the stroke of half time that defined Costa’s performance. It was the way he bullied Arsenal’s defenders, particularly the shaken Shkodran Mustafi, the way he unselfishly laid on chances for his teammates, the way he ran down the clock by stealing free-kicks, wasting time and protecting the ball like a new born.
This was surely Costa’s greatest display since returning for a second spell at Atletico back in January.
And his game-changing display had Everton fans marvelling on Twitter, and wishing this most complete centre-forward had moved to Goodison Park when they had the chance.
Marca claimed that Everton made a club-record £66 million bid to sign Costa in August, with the striker badly out of favour at Chelsea. Then-manager Ronald Koeman even went as far as to say Costa would be welcomed on Merseyside in an interview with the BBC – but he only ever had eyes for Atletico.
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