Wolves manager Bruno Lage and his Leeds United counterpart Jesse Marsch were involved in a heated exchange on the touchline after the Yorkshire club's 2-1 win on Saturday, with Lage claiming that Marsch spoke out of turn to him.
Leeds came from a goal behind to win at Elland Road and send Wolves home empty handed.
The visitors made a bright start and were rewarded when Daniel Podence’s effort bounced over Illan Meslier in the sixth minute.
But Leeds fought back admirably and were level midway through the first half thanks to Rodrigo’s angle drive. In an entertaining and end-to-end encounter, both sides had further chances, before the game was settled by Rayan Ait-Nouri's own goal from Patrick Bamford’s cross in the second half.
The closing stages saw the atmosphere ramped up inside Elland Road and both managers get worked up. Lage was furious with some of referee Robert Jones’ decisions, while Marsch and the home crowd believed Wolves’ players were guilty of going down too easily to win free-kicks.
At one point Leeds fans were seen giving Lage abuse to which the Portuguese boss responded with some gestures. When the final whistle blew, Lage began marching straight to the tunnel and appeared to ignore Marsch’s offer of a handshake.
That did not go down well with the American manager, who shouted some choice words in the Wolves boss’ face before Lage fired back along with some arm waving. Marsch later tried to play down the incident, telling BBC ’s Match of the Day: "It was nothing, really." In his post-match press conference he reiterated the point. "It's normal, I have respect for Bruno and he does a great job with his team," Marsch added.
Lage took a different angle, suggesting that his fiery response was caused by something Marsch had said to him, although he refused to say what. "Nothing against the manager, but I heard something I didn't like," the Wolves boss said. "There are some things, in my opinion, that you cannot say."
Having only narrowly kept Leeds up last season, Marsch was delighted with the result and offered a lot more words on his side’s performance. "I felt like we had a tough start to the second half,” he said. “Wolves were pushing, we had to hold on and dig in a bit.
“The second goal was in some ways a little against the run of play but we were gathering momentum. I was really pleased that the guys who came off the bench made a big difference for us.
"I actually thought we had a bright start to the match. The response to going a goal down was really good and I actually thought we could have had a few more before half time.
"I think all the debutants did quite well. The speed of play on the pitch was at a very high level, both teams trying to impose themselves on the way they wanted to play. In general I think the four players who started their first match for us are going to be good players.”
Wolves were without injured striker Raul Jimenez, so had Hwang Hee-chan leading the line ahead of Morgan Gibbs-White, Pedro Neto and Podence. They had 61 per cent possession and six shots on target to their opponents’ two, but could not take any points.
