INTERVIEW

Tuesday, October 5, 10:52am London Time
Wise erases his video nasty
By Steve Stammers



Among the videos at Dennis Wise's Chelsea home is one that he has never been able to bring himself to watch.

It records the humiliation at Wembley in May 1994 when Manchester United thrashed his team 4-0 in the FA Cup Final.

Five years on, Wise finally has a tape of an encounter between Chelsea and United that will make pleasurable viewing . . . again and again. He has waited a long time for the kind of performance against United that provided Sunday's remarkable 5-0 triumph.

'I have never watched that FA Cup Final video - and I don't want to. But the video of Sunday, well, that will be well worth seeing,' he said.

Wise has suffered with the most ardent Chelsea punters as United have lorded it over Chelsea in recent years.

That made Sunday all the sweeter. And not for the first time, Wise was involved in a flashpoint incident - this time with Nicky Butt which saw the United man sent off for a retaliatory knee into Wise's thigh.

'All I can say about it is that, yes, I fouled him and the referee was pulling the card out to book me. I couldn't have any complaint about that. Then he just kicked out at me and he was shown the red card.

But at least no one can say that him being sent off was crucial to the result. We were 2-0 up at the time and well on top. So there are no excuses. We won fair and square.

'We knew what we had to do, we all knew what jobs we had to carry out. They are the champions of England and Europe and we had to come up with a plan to stop them - we did and it worked.'

Chelsea battled to cut the supply from the wings and without Ryan Giggs, United were reliant on David Beckham to provide the ammunition for Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke.

'Baba (Celestine Babayaro) did great against Beckham,' Wise said. 'He was told that we needed to keep Beckham on his left foot and most of the time he was.

'We also needed to stop the ball being dinked through to Yorke and Cole. They love that kind of service so they can turn you. Myself and Didi (Didier Deschamps) pressurised the ball all the time and Frank Leboeuf and Jes Hogh did well against them with their tight marking.

We made sure there were no big gaps between us and the back four. They hardly ever got behind us.

'Overall, everything went right for us. I was especially pleased for Chris Sutton. He scored his first Premiership goal for us on Sunday and no one deserved it more. He has been playing really well but just hasn't been able to put the ball in the net.'

With his recall to the England squad for Sunday's friendly against Belgium, it was the perfect end to the week for Wise.

'No one could be feeling better than me at the moment,' he said.

'The crucial thing now is to make sure we build on the win. We have got some tough games coming up against Liverpool, Arsenal, Galatasaray and AC Milan.

And we go into those games with our confidence high. What we have to do is show the same attitude and approach.'