Arsene Wenger: Diego Costa cannot give Arsenal any more regrets, we must be completely cold-blooded against him

ARSENE WENGER dismissed Jose Mourinho’s “break his face” threat – and instead targeted the man who was once his first-choice bully.

Arsenal have gone down to ten men in their past two Chelsea clashes with Diego Costa at the heart of both red cards.

PA:Press Association

AP:Associated Press

And now Wenger, who has also failed to see his side score in the past two meetings, does not want to again be left with regrets over handling the combative striker.

Talking about dealing with Costa, Wenger said: “We need to be completely cold-blooded and just focused on our game and not respond to him.

“You need to be committed and respect the rules of the game by not responding.

“I believe last year we were a bit unlucky at Chelsea to be down to ten men because he was suspended after.

Getty Images

Getty Images

“In the second game we deserved the red card, we were caught on a quality run by him.”

Arsenal centre-back Per Mertesacker saw red after a foul on Costa when the sides last played in January.

Before that Gabriel got a second yellow for clashing with the former Atletico Madrid hitman – who himself was handed a retrospective ban.

And Wenger warned his players that they can forget about a result unless they behave.

He added: “The last two games against Chelsea we have played with ten men. It’s important the way we play football and how we behave.

“Discipline and results are strongly linked.

“The regrets we have in the last two games is that we couldn’t play 11 vs 11.”