Speculation abounded yesterday over whether referee Michael Oliver would charge Chelsea forward Diego Costa with violent conduct over either of his two apparent stamps during Chelsea’s 1-0 win against Liverpool in the Capital One Cup on Tuesday night.

The Football Association is aware of the controversy at the match and is waiting for Oliver’s report.

If neither Oliver nor any of the other officials saw the incident they will judge from video replays whether Costa’s conduct constituted straight red-card offences.

If Costa is charged and found guilty any three-match ban would see him miss Chelsea’s game against title rivals Manchester City at the weekend and the matches against Everton and Aston Villa — and there is no right of appeal.

It is understood, however, that it is unlikely he will face two violent conduct charges.

As the Capital One Cup is a Football League competition, the disciplinary process differs slightly from a Premier League match where a three-man panel of former referees would decide whether he should be charged.

Costa was accused by Liverpool of stamping on Emre Can at Stamford Bridge and then a further stamp on Martin Skrtel.

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has insisted that both stamps were “absolutely accidental.”

As for the Blues manager himself, he was fined £25,000 and warned over his future conduct by the Football Association yesterday for claiming in December that there was a “clear campaign” against Chelsea.

His complaints following the draw at Southampton on December 28 were found to be improper and brought the game into disrepute.

An independent regulatory commission found, however, that the comments did not imply officials were biased against Chelsea.

Mourinho attended a personal hearing after being charged following the comments, which came after Cesc Fabregas was denied a penalty and instead booked for a dive at St Mary’s.

It followed incidents of diving in previous matches involving Diego Costa, Willian, Branislav Ivanovic and Gary Cahill.

The Portuguese said afterwards: “That’s a campaign, that’s a clear campaign.

“People, pundits, commentators, coaches from other teams — they react with Chelsea in a way they don’t react to other teams.

“They put lots of pressure on the referee and the referee makes a mistake like this. We lose two points, (Cesc) Fabregas earns a yellow card.

“In other countries where I worked before, tomorrow in the sports papers it would be a front-page scandal because it is a scandal.

“I think it is a scandal because it is not a small penalty — it is a penalty like Big Ben.”