INTERVIEW

From Football 365

HERE LIES DENNIS WISE
Footballer: Gifted, skiful midfielder but dirty, reckless fool

30 Oct 1998

One sending offf a year is not a bad record for a tenacious midfielder - plenty of players have worse records than that - but each time Wise gets a red card, and he's had five in five seasons, it is highlighted by the media because it fits his self-cultivated image as the chirpy, cockney lad who can't control himself, whether in a taxi cab or on the football pitch.  His latest dismissal was much like the others, and herein lies the problem. Wise does not get sent off for a couple of trips or pulls, or for bringing down someone who is through on goal. No, that's not Dennis' style. He gets tackles. He missed the first three games of this season after a ridiculous stamp on an Atletico Madrid player in a pre-season friendly in Holland that saw him wave bye-bye to a starting role in Gianluca Vialli's side.

Vialli and Wise are good friends, which may go some way to explaining the player/manager's pathetic tantrum agter the sending-off but, in the calm after the storm, he must realise that he cannot rely on his little mate to keep a lid on his violent temperament. One day, Wise will let down the team at a vital time and won't be seen through the rose (or should that be yellow) - tinted specs the Chelsea fans still wear down the Bridge.

Like his old Wimbledon partner in crime Vinnie Jones, Wise has never grown out of his inferiority complex. While Jones was a solid, uncomplicated footballer with a dirty streak, Wise is a fantastic, inventive player who would have far more than his 12 caps if he had been able to control himself. Graham Taylor gave him a chance but then cooled on the idea and Terry Venables tried before deciding he wasn't worth the risk in the highly-charged atmosphere of Euro 96. Glenn Hoddle hasn't even bothered and he knows Wise better than anyone.

Wednesday night's challenge on Darren Byfield was appalling. It could have easily broken the youngster's legs, but the fact that it was five minutes from the end of a Worthington Cup game which Chelsea had in the bag merely exposed the lack of judgement in Wise's mind. It's too late for the man to change now. He's 32 in December and is trying to end his career on a high and that means being in any Chelsea side that seriously threatens to win the title. And that's exactly why he is still haring around lunging two-footed at people in a non-event game. He's trying to impress the boss, show him that he has the English spirit his team needs, and trying to match the foreign contingent around him that he has something they have not got and therefore is worthy of his place in a star-studded side.

Unfortunately, Dennis, the only star-studding you do is of the opposition and being frustrated at playing only half Chelsea's games is no excuse. After all, you brought that upon yourself by being suspended half that time.