Mario Lemina stripped of Wolves captaincy after heated incident against West Ham

Mario Lemina has been stripped of the Wolves captaincy after scuffling with West Ham players and his own coaches following the defeat at the London Stadium on Monday.

Manager Gary O’Neil confirmed that Nelson Semedo will take the armband on a permanent basis, starting against Ipswich Town on Saturday, with Lemina agreeing to step aside.

Defeat at West Ham left Wolves 19th in the Premier League table and Lemina’s heated confrontation with Jarrod Bowen at full-time spilled into shoving coach Shaun Derry and butting heads with the former QPR defender.

Lemina had to be dragged away from Derry by his own team-mates after previously flooring West Ham skipper Bowen as Wolves suffered their third defeat in a row.

O’Neil, who is under pressure, said Lemina will remain part of his senior group but the decision was made that a new captain was needed ahead of the crucial clash with Ipswich.

“The discussions with Mario were good,” O’Neil said. “We get on very, very well. He’s been a big part of what we’ve been able to do here, and we have a large amount of respect for each other.

“Sometimes you can come out of these discussions in a really good spot, and I think that we have. I have a lot of respect for Mario, and what he’s still going to be able to do for us.

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“When we get the best out of him on the pitch his level is so high, and he’s still going to play a big part for us which he’s extremely keen to do. He’ll still be around the senior group that leads the team, but at this moment we feel it’s best for Nelson to lead the group.

“The most important thing is us getting the best out of everybody – getting the best out of Mario Lemina week in, week out, the same for Nelson and the rest of the group.

“We dealt with it earlier in the week and the focus since has been purely on Ipswich, Mario’s ready, Nelson’s ready and the rest of the players are ready.”

Lemina, 31, had apologised during the week while O’Neil received the public backing of chairman Jeff Shi, who wrote “while he knows that improving our results quickly is essential for everyone associated with the football club, we are united in supporting him as all of us strive to make that progress happen”.

O’Neil said: “Of course I understand the importance of results for the club, for everybody around the club, and we’re working hard to improve them.

“There’s always been an understanding and a realism attached to where we are. Of course we need to do better, nobody wants to be on nine points after 15 points, but there have been good conversations about what we do now, what we do with January approaching and the direction that we try to push the club in.”