Chelsea Striker Diego Costa 'Not Training as he Should'

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has repeated his concern over Diego Costa's prospective call-up to the Spain squad for next week's Euro 2016 qualifiers as the striker continues to nurse a hamstring injury.

Costa scored his eighth goal of the season as the Blues beat Aston Villa 3-0 on Saturday but Mourinho has admitted the 25-year-old is not taking part in full training.

The former Atletico Madrid striker is unable to play more than one game in a week, such is his fragile fitness, and is unlikely to feature in the Champions League trip to Sporting Lisbon on Tuesday 30 September.

After playing at the World Cup having suffered a hamstring injury during the back end of last season, Costa suffered a recurrence of the problem while on international duty with Spain in a friendly in France.

And Mourinho has pleaded with Spain to leave the Chelsea striker out of the squad for the qualifiers against Slovakia and Luxembourg next week and admits Costa risks doing further damage should be called up.

"I don't care about Diego's goals, I just care about the team scoring enough goals to win," said Mourinho. "I know for a striker scoring goals is always nice for his confidence, especially for a player like him, who is not training as he should because we are protecting him in certain situations.

"He's doing almost nothing, just resting and recovering from the tight muscle he has every time he accumulates fatigue.

"If he doesn't go to the national team and stays here for 15 days, just in treatment, recovering and making the muscle stronger, he has the perfect chance to be in top condition for Chelsea and the national team.

"If he doesn't have this period, it will be always, plays one game, the other is in trouble, the muscle is tight, the muscle is in danger of rupture."

Mourinho added: "The gamble is to play him for a second consecutive match without a minimum of a week recovery. The accumulation is the problem, the accumulation made in the national team made him have this problem. It's an accumulation we are not giving him."