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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Tom Blow

Romelu Lukaku branded "a big lump" by Wolves coach after Chelsea throw away lead

Wolves goalkeeper coach Tony Roberts questioned the referee's decision to award a penalty during his team's 2-2 draw against Chelsea on Saturday.

Peter Banks gave a penalty when Blues striker Romelu Lukaku was fouled by Romain Saiss. The referee did not initially point to the spot but changed his mind after being advised to watch the incident on a monitor at Stamford Bridge by the VAR official.

Lukaku converted the penalty before adding a second moments later with a first-time effort. A superb strike from substitute Francisco Trincao halved the deficit before a last-gasp header from captain Conor Coady salvaged a point for Wolves.

Although Roberts was glad to pick up an unlikely point at Stamford Bridge, he wasn't happy with Banks' decision to award a penalty. "He's a big lump, isn't he," said Roberts in his post-match interview. "So for him to go down, I'm not sure."

Roberts was filling in for Wolves boss Bruno Lage, who missed the game after contracting Covid. The 52-year-old, who picked up two senior caps for Wales, joined the West Midlands club in October and is also the goalkeeping coach for his country.

"We came back to get the point but we're disappointed we didn't win it," added Roberts. "We had opportunities from set-pieces in the first half but this group has great spirit so to come from 2-0 down here, what a result.

Romelu Lukaku scored twice for Chelsea against Wolves on Saturday afternoon (Getty Images)

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"Great goal by Trincao. We see that in training every day, he just needs to do it more often in games. Tomas Oliveira came on and the ball he put in for the last goal was tremendous. What a cross! The three who came on had pace and attacked them.

"We well deserved the point. Bruno Lage was in touch and we had a chat at half time over Zoom. He is very happy as you can imagine but also disappointed we didn't get the three points

"We want to get as high as we can. We have three tough games. We want to go to Europe again and experience it again. We have a big game on Wednesday so we need that hard work and experience to go again."

Saturday's result leaves Chelsea third in the Premier League, five points clear of Tottenham in fifth. Wolves, meanwhile, are eighth - two points behind West Ham in seventh - the final European spot (qualification for the Europa Conference League).

On his equaliser, Coady said: "Incredible feeling, first and foremost. An incredible feeling to do it in front of our away end and an incredible feeling to equalise. I think to score any injury time goal to equalise or win a game, especially in a really tough game.

"It was hard work, but I actually feel we deserved more from the game. A point was the least we deserved and we’ve stopped that bit of a rot we’ve been in, we’ve done that and we want to move forward now."

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