Wolves boss Bruno Lage has detailed why they've signed free agent Diego Costa.

Lage admits he's been wanting to sign Costa since he arrived at Molineux last year.

He said: “When I first came to Wolves, one of my first calls was to Joao Felix to ask about Diego Costa. Joao said good things about him, about his personality and the way he continued to play. In that moment he wanted to go back to his country to play, but after what happened with Sasa (Kalajdzic), I noticed Diego was available and it was a time to talk with him and convince him to come to us.

“We are very happy with him. We know he needs time to be ready to compete at this level. I can use what he said, he said it is his destiny [to return to Premier League]. 15 months ago, when I think about him, we didn't have any chance [of signing him] because he was in a different idea of his career, now he said to me what happened is because it is meant to be.

“I hope he is now ready to compete at this level and I believe we can bring the old Diego Costa to us, because that's what we need, we need a reference in the box, we need one guy to compete with Raul, and Diego has that profile and he has a different profile to Raul. We have one more day. Let's see if he can be available."

On Costa's aggressive ways, Lage continued: "If you want to press and be more aggressive, sometimes you cannot be too nice. We were talking about that last season with how we pressed sometimes and it became too easy for the other team to come out of our pressure because we were not aggressive.

“Not aggressive to kick the opponent, but aggressive to be close. You need to be aggressive in the duels and he [Costa] said that to me: 'I know you ask about my profile, my personality, I am one of the best guys outside the pitch, but inside the pitch, I am very hard.'

“That is the kind of man I want also with the quality that he has. It was a simple talk and it was very easy to convince him to join us."