If evidence were required that the bare statistics don’t often tell the full story, or indeed that football can still crack some genuinely hilarious in-jokes, it might be worth starting with this fact. Technically Diego Costa didn’t commit a single foul during Chelsea’s 2-0 defeat of Arsenal at Stamford Bridge.

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No: not one. Despite appearing to spend pretty much his entire 81 minutes in a state of malevolent contact with the opposition. Despite appearing to do very few things that weren’t semi-fouls or almost-fouls or simply fouls. And despite that two-minute spell at the end of the first half during which Costa conceived, directed and ultimately delivered the pivotal sending off of Gabriel, Arsenal’s centre half exiting the field as wide-eyed and pale as a prize tuna wriggling on the end of a hook shortly before having its brains bashed out on the harbour wall.

Let’s be clear. Costa was horrible here: sandpaper made flesh, a blue-shirted jab in the eye and above all lucky not to be sent off himself. It is often said certain players they could start an argument in an empty room. Costa could start an argument alone on a deep space asteroid somewhere past Betelgeuse. He niggled, he provoked, he stopped the flow of the game, he deliberately and skilfully got an opponent sent off.

And yet Costa left the pitch having committed no fouls at all, a fact that in itself suggests a kind of brilliance to his methods. If we really are going to take the purely professional view of what was a jaw-droppingly toxic display of what might best be described as football-related activity, then Costa effectively won the game for his team here, and did so without leaving a footprint or a fingerprint. This was wasn’t a mugging. It was a heist, and an expert one.

Plenty will feel that a performance like this goes to the heart of what we actually want football to be. Are we really just watching a man cheating here, a sport tarnished by cynicism: or is this, as José Mourinho suggested, epic full-body competition, with Costa the ultimate professional, the reason the Premier League stadiums are full?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Speaking following his team’s 2-0 victory against Arsenal at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, Chelsea manager José Mourinho dismisses suggestions that Blues striker Diego Costa should have been sent off

Mourinho, of course, is the master of spinning out half a truth. If we are going to talk professionalism Costa was aided by some terribly naive refereeing from Mike Dean and his assistants, who appeared to have never actually seen him play before, to be have been ambushed – who knew? – by Costa’s mastery of pushing the rules in plain sight, and of nipping beyond them whenever the back is turned.

This was never more apparent than in the game’s central incident, that outbreak of all-Brazilian jogo feio just before half-time. Tangling under a high ball, Costa gouged and then swiped at Laurent Koscielny’s face. Pushed away by the Frenchman, Costa leapt up and chest-bumped him to the floor. So, three potential yellow cards right there, two of them for Costa. At which point Costa was pulled away by Gabriel. Bad move. Like a virus, he had a new host. And so he was off: chuntering, jostling, niggling, muttering in Gabriel’s ear and basically begging, pleading with him to kick him. Come on. Do it. Kick me.

And so Gabriel kicked him, or rather flicked a leg back at him – bingo Diego! – right in front of the referee. At which point Costa became instantly the guardian of the game, football’s last true gentleman, shocked – shocked! – to see such rough play, shaking his head sadly as Gabriel exited pursued by a steward.

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Is this really expert game management as Mourinho suggested, counselling his opponents sagely on the need to control their emotions? This is a man who in Spain was known for his expert pinching, and for one trick that involved, allegedly, spitting into his hand and then throwing it at his marker. Certainly Costa didn’t appear to be in control of his own emotions as he buffeted Koscielny around. A different ref might have sent him off then and there. At the same time his brilliantly attuned personal Geiger counter had detected a refereeing slackness, a space he could work in, and work it he did.

There are probably two things worth taking from this. First, transplant Costa into this Arsenal team and they would perhaps have won this match, and maybe also the Premier League last season. The game plan here was to press Alexis Sánchez up against Branislav Ivanovic and get Theo Walcott in behind. A flicker or two aside, neither looked like unsettling Chelsea. Costa meanwhile won a game for his team when they needed it most.

And secondly what might this do for Chelsea? The most peculiar part of their struggles has been the lack of obvious cause and effect, more just a kind of shared inner dwindling. By the end here, and indeed in the level playing field of the first half, Nemanja Matic looked to be finding his game, while Eden Hazard buzzed effectively. Teams are strange things. A injection of blood, a flushing through of the veins – fair or foul – might be just what this one needs.