Comedy GOLD 2 0
MARIO LEMINA hopes Diego Costa does not get his coat — despite seeing his own jacket ruined by his joker of a Wolves teammate.
The ex-Chelsea striker finally scored his first Wanderers goal as they eased their relegation fears and now Julen Lopetegui can surely look ahead to next season.
Whether or not those plans includes the former Chelsea striker, who will turn 35 in October, is uncertain.
But Lemina has called for his bosses to hand out-of-contract Costa a new deal, even though he is desperate to avoid the crazy Spaniard off the field.
The former Southampton midfielder said: “Diego’s a key player. I’m not a director, president or coach but he’s a massive, massive player for us.
“But he does everything in the way of jokes. Everything he thinks, he does. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if it will hurt anyone, just does it. We just try to stay away from him.
“He has done lots of things. He puts ice baths over you and various crazy things.
Funny
“He put shampoo on my jacket but I’m OK, it was just funny.
“He’s a funny character, a big joker. But at the same time a hard worker.
“We all know what he’s done in football. Defenders, the opponent are scared of him. He’s a big character and they know what he has done already.
“It is really important for us to feel there is a striker who makes the defence feel under pressure. He helps us a lot.
“He could just be the old man but he is not. He’s working really hard and putting all players under pressure all the time in training.”
Costa finally scored for the first time since his Molineux switch in September — and first time in English football since 2017 — with a decent 27th-minute finish from just inside the area.
It was a deserved goal in an impressive display by the veteran who has taken his time to look the part.
Wolves were always in control, with sub Hwang Hee-chan adding a second from close range 21 minutes from the end after fine play by Matheus Nunes.
In the space of a week they have despatched Chelsea and now Brentford, moving seven points clear of the drop zone but Lemina is conscious that it is not job done yet.
He said: “There is still much to do. “We are working to stay in the Premier League but also to have a base for the next year. We will not give up now, we will do everything till the last game to do something for the next year.”
Reduce
The Bees have now gone five without a win to reduce their chances of a shock European spot.
But captain Christian Norgaard insists he is still happy with the way his side are playing over the last month.
He said: “Expectations have been raised and rightly so. We’ve had a good season, there was a spell of 13 games unbeaten.
“So I understand why the expectations are there, but we have to be able to handle that.
“Even though we were unlucky here, there is also room for improvement.
“We’ve played some good teams in recent weeks and probably deserved to get more from the game against Newcastle.
“We know we are out of the relegation battle because of all the points we collected earlier in the season. We need to keep working on ways to improve.”
WOLVES (4-4-2): Sa 6, Semedo 6, Dawson 7, Kilman 7, Toti 7; Nunes 7, J Gomes 7 (Traore 73), Lemina 7 (Neto 89), Sarabia 6 (Hwang 63, 7); Cunha 7 (Bueno 89), COSTA 8 (Moutinho 73). Subs: Bentley, Collins, Podence, Hodge.
BRENTFORD (4-3-3): Raya 6; Hickey 5 (Baptiste 74), Pinnock 5, Mee 6, Henry 6 (Ghoddos 74); Dasilva 6 (Damsgaard 61, 6), Norgaard 7, Jensen 6 (Janelt 61, 6); Mbeumo 6, Toney 6, Schade 5 (Wissa 61, 6). Subs: Strakosha, Zanka, Onyeka, Roerslev.
Referee: Paul Tierney 7.