Chelsea injury blow as Diego Costa is ruled out of Spain squad to face England after groin injury scare

1/25
Vaishali Bhardwaj10 November 2016

Diego Costa has been ruled out of Spain's upcoming games against Macedonia and England with a groin injury.

The Chelsea striker missed two days of training with his adopted nation this week after feeling discomfort in his groin after reporting for international duty on Monday.

He underwent a light training session on his own before receiving treatment on his injury on Wednesday, but the Spanish national team have now confirmed Costa will not play any part in La Roja's upcoming games and will instead be replaced by Iago Aspas in Julen Lopetegui's squad.

The news will be a blow for Lopetegui with the striker in hot form this season. Costa is currently leading the Premier League's top scorer charts with nine league goals and three assists for Antonio Conte's high-flying Chelsea side.

But the Spain coach will have to do without the 28-year-old for the nation's World Cup qualifier against Macedonia on Saturday and the trip to Wembley to face England in a friendly next Tuesday.

Chelsea coach Conte will also be worried about the extent of Costa's problem, with the Blues taking on Middlesbrough on 20 November before hosting London rivals Tottenham the following week.

Should Costa not recover from his groin injury in time, it could lead to Conte handing the team's only other striker Michy Batshuayi what would be just his first Premier League start of the season.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in