Express & Star

Preston boss blasts Wolves' 'soft foreigners'

Nuno Espirito Santo called for more improvement from Helder Costa despite his return to goalscoring form – as Preston boss Alex Neil accused his 'soft foreign players' of feigning injury.

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Wolves saw their lead at the top of the Championship marginally cut to 11 points when drawing 1-1 at Deepdale on Saturday.

Costa cancelled out Alan Browne's opener shortly after the home side had been reduced to 10 men, with John Welsh sent off for two bookable offences.

It was the 24-year-old's second goal in two games after previously going 14 games without scoring.

"He's getting there, you know what I think about that, he has to get better," Nuno said of Costa.

"He is getting better. The goal is one specific moment, we look at his tasks and he's doing well."

Meanwhile Neil reserved strong words for what he essentially perceived to be cheating by Wolves' players.

He accused their foreign contingent of trying to con the referee into thinking they were injured.

"Against the likes of Wolves they've got a lot of soft foreign players haven't they?" Neil said.

"I think a lot of them go down and look as if they're really hurt and makes the referee think the challenge is worse than it actually is.

"You can guarantee they're going to bounce back up within seconds and that's exactly what happened.

"It seems to be every time there was a free kick a booking would follow.

"John got himself got sent-off and I thought the two bookings were soft to be honest.

"The way the Wolves players go down and roll around it looks like they are really hurt, making the referee think it was a really bad tackle when in actual fact it was an honest attempt to get the ball.

"I thought John had a good game up to that point."

Wolves have sold out their 2,700 allocation of tickets for the trip to face West Midlands rivals Aston Villa at Villa Park next month.

Villa lost ground on Wolves at the weekend after a 2-0 defeat against this weekend's opponents for Nuno's team, Fulham.

Just a couple of hundred tickets remain of a 4,600 allocation for the Craven Cottage clash.