Oxford United chairman Kelvin Thomas says manager Chris Wilder has impressed him enormously – with his sheer graft.

The U's have taken 19 points from the last 21 under their new boss, who has taken little time in winning over the fans as the successor to Darren Patterson and caretaker-manager Jim Smith.

No-one wants to get too carried away, but Thomas admitted: "It's amazing how hard he works. I'm in the office until 6 o'clock and Chris is often still there grafting away, and leaving after I do.

"It's always nice when you get one of your appointments right. We were very impressed with Chris at the interview stage and we are very pleased at the way in which he has gone about his work.

"He's moving his family down soon and is totally committed to the job."

In a revealing interview in the Oxford Mail today, Wilder lifts the lid on how his life in football has developed, from a fresh-faced youngster with Southampton, to playing under some of the country's top managers, and his thirst for knowledge about the game.

He lists Lawrie McMenemy, at Southampton, and Dave Bassett, at Sheffield United, as influences on him, but stresses he doesn’t copy any of the many top managers he has played under.

“Ultimately, you can’t say I’m going to model myself on any one person, you’ve got to do what you think is right,” he said.

Wilder has mainly positive things to say about the bosses he played under, which contrasts with the comments of ex-U’s striker Andy Scott yesterday.

Now manager of Brentford, Scott said he took special delight in seeing the Bees stuff a Chester side – managed by Mark Wright – 3-0 in League Two on Saturday.

He said: "For me it was nice to get one over on one of my former managers.

"I didn’t have the best of times under his stewardship at Oxford and that is down to him and what he did to me. So I really enjoyed that win and wish it could have been five or six.

"It wasn’t a personal thing, but, in my opinion, he couldn’t manage the players.

"To be honest I’ve probably taken a lot out of that managerial regime and done everything the opposite way and that is why it is working for me and not for him.”

Scott added: "What goes around comes around and I have been waiting for this day, big time. I was desperate for us to play well, win and keep a clean sheet.

“It is just a level of behaviour by a manager to any player that is unacceptable.

"Whether it is verbal or threatening or just general intimidation, it is not nice to be around and it makes going into work very difficult and as a group as well that is probably why we were third from bottom when he got the sack.

"But we picked up after that because we had someone (Ian Atkins) able to motivate us."