Yaya Toure was on Monday Night Football tonight as his former club Manchester City beat Wolves 3-0 in the Premier League.
Toure won three top-flight titles in more than 300 appearances for City but his Etihad career came to a sorry end once Pep Guardiola arrived.
Guardiola, who sold Toure to City while the pair were together at Barcelona in 2010, gave the Ivorian great just a handful of starts in his final season at the club before offloading him to Olympiakos last summer.
And the 35-year-old’s illustrious career in England came to a bitter end as he and his controversial agent Dimitri Seluk launched a string of incredible rants at the Spaniard.
talkSPORT has had a look at some of the best (or worst) of what was said between the trio.
Toure accuses Guardiola of ‘having problems with Africans’ in June 2018 rant
“Pep likes to dominate and wants to have obedient players who lick his hands. I do not like this kind of relationship.
“I respect my coach but I am not his thing. Like all players, I have bickered with my coaches. But at a certain point, men who do not understand each other reconcile. This is not possible with Pep, who is very rigid.
“The other players will never admit it publicly but some have already told me that they ended up hating him. Because he manipulates and plays a lot with your head.
“He was cruel to me. Do you really think Barcelona could have done that with Iniesta? I came to wonder if it was not because of my colour.
“I am not the first to talk about these differences in treatment. In Barca, some have also asked the question. Maybe we Africans are not always treated by some in the same way as others.
“When we realise that he often has problems with Africans wherever he goes, I ask myself questions…
“When the day comes that he picks a team featuring five Africans – and not naturalised Africans – I promise I will send him a cake!
“When he arrived at City, he told me right away that he needed me to coach the youth. Even if I had some options to leave, I thought that I would be able to enter the legend of the Citizens. The same thing last summer when he asked me to stay.
“Maybe he was afraid of losing control of the dressing room if I left because he knew what I was representing for the group? But after the transfer window closed, I saw that I was removed from the team.
“I think I was dealing with someone who just wanted revenge on me.
“I do not know why but I have the impression that he was jealous of me, that he took me for a rival. There you have it.
“We always looked at each other weirdly. He was spinning around me without saying anything, watching me, gauging me, but not talking to me. Yet he knows that I speak Catalan, Spanish and English.
“It should be enough to communicate both. But apparently no … Every time we passed each other, he seemed embarrassed. As if I made him a little self-conscious. As if, also, he had understood that I knew him perfectly.
“I want to be the one who breaks the Guardiola myth a bit. Barcelona, he did not invent it. He just had the intelligence to adapt what Cruyff had set up.
“Then, at Bayern and City, he tried to reproduce the same patterns but with this requirement: working with his players and with almost unlimited means. It would not work at Crystal Palace or Watford.
“For me, Zidane is bigger because he has fewer requirements and shows great respect for all his players. Pep, he wants to be considered a genius. He loves it. But there is a lot of comedy behind all this, it’s a bit of anything. He creates a character.
“When I see him scratching his head in full match to show that he thinks thoroughly, it makes me laugh. It’s comedy.”
Guardiola responded a week later
“It’s a lie and he knows it. We were together for two years and now this is when he says it. He never told me face-to-face.”
Seluk on Guardiola
“You know, Guardiola cannot be called a dog. Because a dog is a good and kind creature, man’s best friend. But Guardiola, by his very nature, is man’s worst enemy.
“Many may say that it is Guardiola’s style, that he plays spectacular football.
“But when you buy up all the best players in the world, this is much easier than, say, it was for Ranieri, whose Leicester side won the Premier League. The papers write a lot about Guardiola, although he as a person is not worthy of this attention. And yet we hear so little about Zidane, who has won the Champions League three times in a row.
“This testifies to the importance of personality. And when people say that Guardiola is the best manager, I must reply: Guardiola is far from winning three consecutive Champions Leagues. And furthermore, I am ready to bet that he never wins it at Manchester City.
“And I don’t think he will ever win the Champions League again.”
Seluk on Toure’s comments about African players under Guardiola
“God sees everything. As a man who acted with Yaya, the legend of the club, which under different pretexts did not give the opportunity to go on the field.
“He turned all Africa against himself, many African fans turned away from Manchester City. And I’m sure that many African shamans in the future will not allow Guardiola to win the Champions League.
“This will be for Guardiola an African curse. Life will show whether I am right or not.”
Seluk on Toure joining another club for £1-a-week to get away from Guardiola
“Yaya has many offers from different countries, where they are ready to pay a lot of money, but we decided to dedicate the next season to Guardiola. And to prove and show the fans of Manchester City that Yaya has not finished with football.
“He is full of energy and wants to play this season in England.
“At a time when huge sums are being spent in England for the purchase of football players, I officially declare that Yaya is ready to move as a free agent to any English club of the top six with a salary of one-pound-a-week, but with a bonus system based on certain successes
“I believe that a player like Yaya would not reject Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool. Yaya is a winner.
“And never before has a top footballer with leadership qualities rejected any club, especially when they don’t have to pay for it.”
