Wolverhampton Wanderers hold Newcastle United but lose Pedro Neto to hamstring injury

WOLVERHAMPTON – Hwang Hee-chan responded after giving away what his coach called a “scandalous” penalty by scoring the equaliser in Wolverhampton Wanderers’ 2-2 draw with Newcastle United on Saturday.

However, the hosts suffered a major blow when Pedro Neto was carried off a rain-swept Molineux pitch with a hamstring injury.

Newcastle, who stretched their unbeaten streak to six games, are sixth in the Premier League with 17 points after 10 matches. Gary O'Neil's Wolves, unbeaten in the last five games, sit 12th on 12 points.

“A good performance, and hopefully Pedro won’t be out too long,” O’Neil told Sky Sports.

“For the boys to be able to put in a performance like that against a Champions League team that I saw pull apart Paris Saint-Germain not too long ago is a big effort for them, so good point,” he added. “But you feel like if a few things had maybe just gone our way, we were value for three (points).”

Neto’s injury put a damper on what was an otherwise entertaining, end-to-end affair, with the potential consequences of the Portuguese winger’s loss obvious on the concerned faces of Wolves fans. The 23-year-old leads the league in assists with seven this term.

“It’s a big cost, I’m not going to lie,” Mario Lemina, who netted Wolves’ first goal in the 36th minute, told the BBC. “I hope it’s not going to be a big injury.”

O’Neil said the severity of the injury would be known in the next few days, adding: “Any team in this league would miss a player of Pedro’s quality.”

Hwang levelled in the 71st minute with a goal Newcastle could have avoided had goalkeeper Nick Pope caught a free kick rather than punched it out. It was redemption for the South Korean forward after his rash first-half tackle led to a penalty for the visitors.

Hwang said: “After I gave them a penalty I felt so sad, so I really wanted to do something for my team. After the first half, everybody said to me ‘you can do it, keep going’. They gave me trust. I scored again and I am so happy to help the team.”

Callum Wilson, who has seven goals in the Premiership this season, netted twice for Newcastle before the interval, first in the 22nd minute when goalkeeper Jose Sa crashed into a teammate and let the ball slip from his grasp. Wilson pounced and fired home with an overhead kick.

“It was certainly a massively tough game for us today,” Newcastle manager Eddie Howe told Sky. “I thought two really good teams and probably a really good spectacle for the viewers, but disappointed not to get over the line and win the game but really proud of what we had to give today off the back of a really challenging week.”

Lemina drew Wolves level when he outmuscled Kieran Trippier to head in Neto’s corner.

Wilson restored the Magpies’ lead just before the break after Hwang was penalised for his tackle on Fabian Schar, a decision that had Wolves fans roaring their disapproval. Sa got a hand to Wilson’s penalty, but the ball trickled in.

On the incident, O’Neil said: “It was a scandalous decision. Terrible on-field decision and terrible that VAR (video assistant referee) did not intervene so, yeah, I thought they got it badly wrong.” REUTERS