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Diego Costa’s current situation at Stamford Bridge certainly isn’t ideal, yet Chelsea showed at the weekend they would be able to live without the Spain international if push came to shove.

Joint top scorer of the Premier League with 14 goals, the former Atlético Madrid star certainly offers a lot going forward, but if Antonio Conte doesn’t want him to play, he won’t, and that’s that.

With Michy Batshuayi as a backup option, and Hazard capable of leading the line, things could be a lot worse, yet France Football seem to think the Italian manager has his eye on a Russian striker.

Whether this is a replacement for Diego Costa (we doubt it) remains to be seen, but the French magazine report in their weekly edition that Chelsea are interested in FK Krasnodar forward Fyodor Smolov.

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Claiming he would be ‘changing club in January’, the 26-year-old is also a target for Borussia Dortmund, who are apparently looking at replacements in case of a Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang exit next summer.

With 15 goals in 18 games so far this season, Smolov is clearly capable of finding the back of the net, yet you would expect Chelsea to go after bigger targets, especially in case of a Diego Costa exit.

Either that, or they have a lot of faith in Michy Batshuayi, something Conte is yet to show.

The other explanation would be the Russian link via Roman Abramovich, but surely Chelsea’s owner is more ambitious than that.

Considering Stoke were linked in December with Smolov, we’ll go ahead and say this one is unlikely to happen.