Chris Wilder & Patrick Bamford feature in the most awkward manager-player alliances | OneFootball

Patrick Bamford joining Sheffield United has certainly raised a few eyebrows, given his feisty history with Blades boss Chris Wilder.

But this move isn’t the first unlikely – and potentially very awkward – alliance between a player and a manager. Football is only a game, after all, and you’d be amazed at how strong words can be brushed under the carpet if it’s beneficial for a player or manager’s career.

Here’s a closer look at six of the most awkward alliances, or reunions, between players and managers.

Chris Wilder vs Patrick Bamford

This beef stems back to the 2018-19 campaign, Bamford’s debut campaign at Leeds United, when they were locked into a knife-edge promotion battle with Wilder’s Blades.

Sheffield United won that battle, edging past Leeds into second place, and Wilder couldn’t resist a pop during their promotion celebrations. He described Bamford as one of the “muppets from Leeds” in an unguarded post-match interview.

The Yorkshire derby continued to simmer away as the two clubs flitted between the top two tiers over the following years, with Bamford eventually getting a chance to fire back, leading a chant of “Wilder is a w*nker”

In fairness to the pair, you get the sense that they’re self-aware enough to recognise the game is the game. Bamford even called Wilder to smooth things out after the clip went viral on social media.

“Had a conversation with Pat yesterday and I’ve no issue at all with it,” Wilder revealed.

“I’m not sure about the words used from a fellow pro! But I appreciated and respected him giving me a call.

“We had 20 minutes and the same again I spoke to Daniel as well and had a half-hour chat with him and he is a super guy, a top guy.

“When I was playing we used to give it and take it and that’s part and parcel of the game at every level, even on a Sunday morning. I have absolutely no issue. I am cool with it and I said that to Pat.”

And now they’re working together at Bramall Lane. Funny how things work out.

Neil Warnock vs El Hadji Diouf

Another one with a distinctive Leeds flavour, Warnock and Diouf’s spat predated their time together at Elland Road.

Diouf was accused of abusing Jamie Mackie after the striker suffered a broken leg in an FA Cup third round clash between Warnock’s QPR and Diouf’s Blackburn Rovers.

In typical form, Warnock didn’t mince his words when asked about the incident. He called Diouf “the lowest of the low”, saying that “to call him a sewer rat would be an insult to sewer rats”.

Tell us how you really feel, Neil.

Eighteen months later, Warnock was at Leeds and took up the option to sign the Senegal international.

“He is a matador,” Warnock said of Diouf after a solid performance in a League Cup victory over Everton.

“This is his stage. He needs something like this. He’s not doing it for the money, he’s one of the lowest-paid players at the club. He could get six or seven times the money in Saudi Arabia or somewhere, but he won’t be able to enjoy nights like that.”

Sewer rats, matadors… six and two threes, really.

Jose Mourinho vs Juan Mata

By Mourinho’s standards, not a massively antagonistic one. He’s had far more spectacular fallings out in his time. Mata strikes us as the sort that’s impossible to really fall out with.

A bit of an awkward one, nonetheless. The Spanish playmaker was among Chelsea’s standout players as they won the Champions League and Europa League in back-to-back campaigns. Looking back, it was probably the best football he ever produced.

But upon his return to Stamford Bridge, Mourinho struggled to get him to fit into his tactical style. After a half-season on the fringes under Mourinho, Mata was sold to Manchester United as they made a desperate bid to save the ailing David Moyes project.

“I like people to be happy,” Mourinho explained of the sale in January 2014.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t make him happy in this squad – I’m so sad with that, but I build my team around Oscar playing as my number 10.”

As fate would have it, Mourinho followed in Mata’s footsteps to Old Trafford two years later. Water under the bridge, he found a place for Mata the second time around.

He made exactly 100 appearances for Manchester United under Mourinho and started both their League Cup and Europa League final victories in 2016-17.

Jose Mourinho vs Henrikh Mkhitaryan

Of course, Mourinho is the one manager to feature twice here.

His relationship with Mkhitaryan was strained during their time together at Manchester United.

He dropped the Armenian from squads altogether and publicly criticised him for “disappearing” during games.

“I was not happy with his last performances. I’m not speaking about one or two, I’m speaking about three, four or five,” Mourinho told reporters in November 2017.

“He started the season very well and after that, step by step, he was disappearing. His performance levels in terms of goalscoring and assists, pressing, recovering the ball high up the pitch, bringing the team with him as a No.10, were decreasing.

“That was enough [to drop him] because the others worked to have a chance. Everybody works to have a chance. It’s as simple as that.”

Two months later, Mkhitaryan moved to Arsenal in a deal that saw Alexis Sanchez go in the other direction. He failed to pull up any trees at the Emirates, rekindling his career at Roma in 2019. Two years later, Mourinho joined him in the Italian capital.

As with Mata, Mourinho was magnanimous enough to bury the hatchet. Mkhitaryan featured prominently in Mourinho’s first season at the Olimpico but was soon sold to Inter.

Pep Guardiola vs Yaya Toure

Toure played an important role in Barcelona’s triumphant 2008-09 treble, Guardiola’s first season as a top-level manager.

He even played at centre-back when they capped it off with victory over Manchester United in the Champions League final.

The Ivorian midfielder was approaching the peak of his powers when he was sold to Manchester City in the summer of 2010. And not especially on good terms.

“When Toure left the club to come to the City, Guardiola told him he was leaving to a s*** team,” Toure’s agent Dimitri Seluk told Radio Seluk during a war with words with the Catalan.

“Now, Guardiola has come to this s*** team. Guardiola likes money more than football.”

Oof. During his first season in charge of City, Guardiola insisted Toure wouldn’t play for him again unless Seluk apologised following his client’s omission from the club’s Champions League squad.

Toure was eventually welcomed back into the fold, but it never felt like the most harmonious relationship.

Toure’s tantrum over a lack of birthday cake, and accusations that Guardiola has problems with African players (later retracted) would come later.

Thomas Tuchel vs Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

A different kind of awkward, this one.

Reports from the German tabloids suggested that Tuchel and Aubameyang didn’t always see eye-to-eye during their time together at Borussia Dortmund.

A precursor to the disciplinary problems that Aubameyang would later have with Mikel Arteta, Tuchel once dropped Aubameyang from a Champions League game – “a necessary internal measure” in Tuchel’s words.

Unlike with Arteta, the pair made amends and evidently have mutual respect for one another. Tuchel later saw fit to sign the striker years later at Chelsea. Aubameyang said the German coach was a big reason he decided to join.

…But only a few days after Aubameyang’s arrival, Tuchel was dismissed. Ouch.

“It was a big mistake going to Chelsea, a f****** big mistake,” Aubemayang reflected on a recent appearance on the TroopzTV podcast.