The United manager revealed after the derby defeat to Sheffield Wednesday nine days ago that the
28-year-old midfielder had been stripped of the captaincy after asking to return to his former club.

Wise was furious that Newell had phoned to ask to take Nicholls back to Kenilworth Road, but the Hatters manager hit back in the build-up to Saturday's important game between the two clubs by claiming he had only contacted Leeds after learning the player had been offered on loan to QPR.

After watching his side beat Luton courtesy of Richard Cresswell's 50th-minute strike, Wise said: "Mike is talking rubbish and he knows he is talking rubbish. He knows the phone call he made to me.

"He tried to off-load one of his players to me. I was not interested and I was not interested in loaning him Kevin Nicholls.

"I was not interested in loaning anyone Kevin Nicholls. There was one situation after Kevin Nicholls had told me he wanted to leave. He asked me to speak to a certain person.

"I spoke to him and that was it. It was not QPR. It was not any team in the lower half (of the Championship). That is the end of the matter. Stop covering your back. What he (Newell) is saying is a load of rubbish.

"I think some of you (press) knew anyway before (the Wednesday game) so the question was going to be thrown at me. I answered that question honestly."

The majority of the 27,138 crowd, Elland Road's second highest of the season, made their feelings known about Nicholls with several derogatory chants being sung about United's former captain.

Newell, who a source in Luton has claimed offered Dean Morgan to Wise as part of a loan switch, maintained after the game that he had only enquired about a player who Leeds signed for £700,000 last summer after learning he had been offered to QPR.

On being told Wise's comments, he said: "I am speaking rubbish? What about? I am not speaking rubbish about it. I don't speak rubbish.

"My information tells me that he has (been offered) to two different clubs. If my information is wrong, I will hold my hands up, but I don't believe it is."

United's victory on the pitch was not their only triumph on Saturday with the club going to court to ensure the matchday programme could be sold after an injunction was served by former director Melvyn Levi on Friday. Levi was described as "the enemy within" in the Sheffield Wednesday programme with chairman Ken Bates also printing his home address. The row continued all week and the former director was granted a temporary injunction that ran out at 9am on Saturday.

Bates and the club's media officer Paul Dews made their submissions at Leeds Magistrates Court on Saturday morning and the injunction was not extended.

United sell 8,500 programmes at a typical game and had it not been available for sale, a club official estimated the cost to United would have been around £50,000 due to lost sales and advertising revenue.

Despite not being asked to by the court, a paragraph relating to Levi was crossed out with a black marker pen as a precaution.

Nevertheless, Bates re-iterated elsewhere in his notes his belief that Levi was proving a stumbling block to investment being made into the club.