Diego Costa On Track To Become A New Club Legend Like Didier Drogba

Summer signing Diego Costa has enjoyed a blistering start to his Chelsea career, netting seven goals in five matches and sits on top of the scorers chart.

The 25-year-old came to England with a stellar reputation after last season’s exploits with Atletico Madrid, but after an underwhelming performance at the World Cup, there were doubts as to whether he could adapt quickly to the rigors of the Premier league.

After all, the Brazilian born Spanish international has not always been a prolific marksman and struggled for goals in the early years of his career. In his first six seasons in Spain, on various loan spells, he posted league tallies of 10 or less. Hardly the statistics of a natural-born goalscorer.

But when Radamel Falcao left for Monaco, he was afforded the opportunity to become Atletico’s main man and responded in impressive fashion, netting 27 goals in 34 matches for the La Liga Champions.

His performances caught the eye of the Chelsea hierarchy and Jose Mourinho, who moaned about his lack of quality strikers all through the season, promptly snapped him up for a reported £32m fee.

Costa has looked an excellent addition so far having scored against Burnley, Leicester, two at Goodison Park and a hat-trick against Swansea. He didn’t find the net at Manchester City but was involved in the build-up play leading to the goal,and hit the post late on.

This terrific run of form has steered Mourinho’s men to the top of the League and is all the more outstanding when you compare it to some of Chelsea’s past strikers.

Fernando Torres and Andriy Shevchenko took well over a season to notch seven goals while legend Didier Drogba, who returned to the club this summer, did not quite hit the ground running immediately in his first spell at the club.

Not many people remember his early struggles at Stamford Bridge. It took the then 26-year-old forward two seasons to properly adapt to the Premier League as he was coming from the Ligue 1 where the standard of football is much lower.

The Ivorian took 18 matches to score seven for the Blues and he only managed 16 goals in 40 appearances in 2004-05 before going on to score in so many cup finals and etch his name in Chelsea’s history.

Not so for Costa who is coming from a much stronger league and has slotted in seamlessly, building up excitement amongst the Blues’ faithful. The Spaniard will be properly assessed at the end of the campaign but the early signs indicate that things are heading in the right direction.