Diego Costa was targeted by Atletico Madrid in the summer. (AFP/Getty Images)

Diego Simeone has confirmed that Atletico Madrid wanted to re-sign Diego Costa from Chelsea but admits the Premier League leaders held the upper hand in negotiations.

The 28-year-old joined Stamford Bridge in a £32 million deal in 2014 and won the Premier League in his first season under Jose Mourinho.

The Spain international struggled in his second campaign and was wanted by Atletico in the summer as a replacement for Jackson Martinez, who was sold to Guangzhou Evergrande for £31m in February.

‘I was crystal clear with Diego about what we were trying to do and how long we’d wait for an answer and that’s why we’ve still got a great relationship today,’ Simeone told Marca.


Diego Costa won La Liga with Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid in 2014. (Getty Images)

‘The problem we came up against was that there tend not to be buyout clauses in England and so Chelsea could say to us: ‘we want £180m’ or ‘we don’t want to sell’.



‘From my point of view both I and the club did everything we possibly could to get him back to Atletico but what happened was we set a date after which we had to take action and we signed Kevin Gameiro instead.’

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