Diego Costa Has Already Adapted – Filipe Luis

Filipe Luis admitted it is “frustrating” not to be able to play alongside Diego Costa for Tuesday’s Champions League clash with former club Chelsea, and reiterated that the Premier League champions had no choice but to indulge the striker’s “most important desire” to return to the Spanish capital.

“It is frustrating seeing him playing like an animal [in training], but he can’t play,” Luis said. “It’s just a month until he can play with us. He’ll help us a lot. I don’t have any doubts about it. He knows the club, he knows the way we play.

“He has already adapted. I know it was difficult times for him and for Chelsea. Now everybody’s happy. We want to see him play and happy again.

“I think he came back to Atletico because Chelsea couldn’t keep him because it’s his desire. He really wanted to come back to Atletico. He was happy here. He did his job really well. His most important desire was to come back.”

Costa will not be back at Stamford Bridge for the match after Simeone decided to leave him in Madrid. When pressed on why he had made the decision, the Atletico manager replied: “Because I’m the manager and I make the best decision for the team.”

“We need to think about our game tomorrow,” Simeone said. “We’re playing a fantastic team who are top of the group and they deserve to be top of the group. We don’t have to look at what happens in Rome. It’s not going to be a simple game, but we need to take it to where we think we can hurt [Chelsea].”

Simeone added: “You learn something from every game, whether you win, lose or draw. Tomorrow we’re up against a very good team, playing at a high level.

“They played well at the Metropolitano. I hope that tomorrow we can play as we’ve been planning to during the build-up. We’re not in the same situation we were going into the first game [against Chelsea]. We won well at home to Roma [2-0] and winning such games is always very important.”