Wolves strip Lemina of captaincy after post-match scuffle with own teammates
Wolves manager Gary O’Neil has stripped Mario Lemina of the club captaincy after his post-match altercation with West Ham forward Jarrod Bowen and his own teammates.
Lemina lost it with Bowen at the end of Monday night’s defeat that left Wolves 19th in the Premier League table and O’Neil facing the sack, and then turned on Toti Gomes and Nelson Semedo before finally clashing with Wolves coach Shaun Derry.
After cooling down, Lemina took to Instagram to say: ‘I write this message with great hindsight, and I really want to apologise to all the people who love this club and who love football, I never wanted this to happen on the ground. I have always been a fair player, even in defeat.
‘If something is said, make sure the truth comes out. I shook this player’s hand, as I always do, and I was grabbed by the shirt and thrown to the ground. I just reacted to a situation that I didn’t cause at all.
‘I love my team, the staff and all the people who make up this club. We [are] all gonna fight harder to overcome this situation. Shaun you already know. We gonna fight again and again.’
But that apology did not wash with O’Neil, who confirmed on Friday that Lemina would no longer be captain.
“Mario’s fine. It was a conversation, it was nothing more than that,” said O’Neil.
“The most important thing to come out of it is that we need to get the best out of everybody.
“Of course, the other night sparked the conversation, but it was an important conversation that had to be had.
“Myself and Mario have a good understanding now of how we move forward and what it looks like.
“We dealt with it earlier in the week, so the focus since that moment has been firmly on Ipswich.
“These things – sometimes they can be tough to deal with and sometimes you can come out of them in a good spot, and I feel like we have.
“I have a lot of respect for Mario and what he’s still going to be able to do for us. When we get the best out of him on the pitch, his level is so high that he’s still going to play a big part for us.
“He’ll still be around that group of senior players that lead the team, but at this moment we feel it’s best for Nelson (Semedo) to lead the group.”
Reacting to public support from chairman Jeff Shi earlier this week, O’Neil said: “If I’d been put into a situation where we were free-spending, I was cherry-picking Premier League players and we’d won three games in whatever it is, I’d have lost my job a while ago.
“But that’s not the situation we’re in, the situation we’re in is very different to that.
“Of course I understand the importance of results for the club, for everybody around the club, and we’re working hard to improve them.”