Winston Reid says he will not let Diego Costa out of his sight when West Ham host London rivals Chelsea on Monday night, admitting the striker has the ability to expose any defender's weakness.
Costa will arrive at West Ham's London Stadium tonight having scored 16 goals for Antonio Conte's league leaders - one of which was the winner in the 2-1 victory over the Hammers at Stamford Bridge on the opening day of the season.
Reid was tasked with marking Costa in that game, as well as in West Ham's EFL Cup fourth-round tie with the Blues in October when Conte brought the striker on in the 54th minute with Chelsea losing 2-0.
The West Ham defender admits the Spain international is a "top player", but says he will try and contain Costa this evening by staying as close as possible to Chelsea's highest scorer and not letting him out of his sights.
"When you play against top players you have to do your best and try and be at the best of your game or you get found out," Reid told Standard Sport.
"You have to try and keep your eyes on him at all times and make sure you're close to him and mark him in the box where he's dangerous."
Chelsea left it late to beat West Ham in the reverse fixture back in August, relying on an 89th-minute goal from Costa to hand Conte his first win in the Premier League.
The Blues started the season with a rough 4-3-3 formation before Conte switched to a 3-4-3 set-up after the 3-0 loss in the league against Arsenal in late September.
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Chelsea have since stormed to the top of the Premier League standings while West Ham have steadied their form and have only lost three of their last 12 top-flight games.
Now sitting in ninth place, Reid believes a rejuvenated West Ham side can use their home advantage to secure at least a point against Chelsea tonight.
"The first game was different because they played a different system. And the second game when we played them at home in the Cup, they changed a couple of positions [in the 3-4-3]," Reid said.
"It's a different system, and they are doing really well. They are hard to score against but we put a couple of goals past them at home and we put one past them away.
"We'll be at home and hopefully we'll have a good crowd so we will have a go at them and see if we can win the game.
"They aren't leading the league for fun - they've been scoring goals left, right and centre and conceding very few. It's going to be tough."
