Antonio Conte has described Álvaro Morata as the kind of “polite” young man any father would be happy for his daughter to bring home – which, of course, is hardly a description that would spring to mind when it comes to discussing the striker he has replaced: Diego Costa.

Costa arrived in Madrid on Friday, to seal his £57 million return to Atlético Madrid, just as Conte was delivering his pre-match briefing ahead of Chelsea’s Premier League encounter away to Stoke City and it was clear that the head coach was not in any mood to pay tribute to the striker who, he felt, had made life difficult for him.

He said questions on Costa, even when asked which qualities he admired about the forward who was Chelsea’s top-scorer last season, lacked “respect”. “I repeat now: I'm not interested to talk about the past,” Conte said. “I think the past is not important. For every player, for every single player, the past stays there. If you did well in the past, okay.”

If Costa is the past for Conte then Morata – who was signed for approximately the same initial fee and is four years younger – is very much the future. Indeed Conte even predicted the 24-year-old was a player he could work with “for the next 10 years”.