Matic: Chelsea ‘not scared’ of facing Tottenham without suspended Costa

Nemanja Matic insists he and his Chelsea team-mates are “not scared” of facing Tottenham without the suspended Diego Costa on Wednesday.

Costa, who has scored 11 goals in 11 Premier League games this season, picked up his fifth booking of the campaign in the Blues’ goalless draw with Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on Saturday.

The 26-year-old will now miss the visit of Spurs to Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, but Matic remains confident that Didier Drogba or Loic Remy can step up for the unbeaten Premier League leaders.

“I’m not scared,” Matic told reporters. “Of course we need to have everybody available but in Didier Drogba and Loic Remy, we have good strikers.”

Sunderland were the first team in any competition to stop Chelsea scoring this season and Matic admits the Blues must be prepared for future opponents trying to replicate the Black Cats’ spoiling tactics.

“Now every team is going to try to defend like that against us,” he added. “We know that and we’re ready for that. But we will find the space to score.

“We knew they would create problems for us and we were ready for that.

“We didn’t play badly. They played well even though I felt comfortable on the pitch and for 90 minutes we controlled the game.

“But they were compact and had 10 players on the edge of the box all the time, it was difficult to find space out there.

“We are not happy with one point but it is better than to go home with zero. If you don’t score, you cannot win but [against Tottenham] we cannot let this happen again, we have to score.”

Source: Goal.com