Dennis Wise

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Personal information
Dennis Wise
Full name	Dennis Frank Wise
Date of birth	December 16, 1966 (age 40)
Place of birth	Kensington, London, England
Height	5 ft 6 in (1.68 m)
Nickname	Wisey
Playing position	Midfielder Manager
Club information
Current club	Leeds United
Youth clubs
1983-1985	Southampton
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1985-1990 1990-2001 2001-2002 2002-2005 2005 2005-2006	Wimbledon Chelsea Leicester City Millwall Southampton Coventry City	135 (27) 332 (53) 017 0(1) 085 0(7) 011 0(1) 013 0(6)
National team
1991-2000	England	021 0(1)
Teams managed
2003-2005 2005 2006 2006-	Millwall (player-manager) Southampton (caretaker manager) Swindon Town Leeds United
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Dennis Frank Wise (born December 16, 1966 in Kensington) is an English football manager and former footballer, currently manager of Leeds United. Wise won 21 caps for England and scored 1 goal, on his debut against Turkey. He played for England in all three group games at Euro 2000.

1 Playing career
2 Management career
- 2.1 Swindon Town
- 2.2 Leeds United
3 Honours
4 Managerial stats
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] Playing career

[edit] Wimbledon

Wise started his career with Southampton but fell out with manager Lawrie McMenemy and moved to Wimbledon at the age of 18.

He was a member of the Wimbledon "Crazy Gang" that famously defeated hot favourites Liverpool 1-0 in the 1988 FA Cup final and was named Wimbledon player of the year in the same season.

[edit] Chelsea

He signed for Chelsea in July 1990 for a then club record fee of £1.6 million.

Wise's Chelsea career spanned 11 years from 1990-2001. In his time at the club the combative midfielder made 445 appearances (only three Chelsea players have made more) and scored 76 goals, including a memorable Champions League equaliser in the San Siro against AC Milan in 1999. Wise was captain of the Chelsea teams that won the FA Cup in 1997 and 2000, the League Cup in 1998 and the Cup Winners' Cup in 1998. He was also twice voted club player of the year, in 1998 and 2000. With new manager Claudio Ranieri seeking to lower the average age of the Chelsea squad, he was sold to Leicester City in June 2001 for £1.6 million.

Always a controversial figure (Sir Alex Ferguson once said he could start a fight in an empty house) Wise's time at Chelsea was tarnished by disciplinary problems and unsavoury off-the-field incidents. In 1995 he was convicted of assaulting a London taxi-driver and given a three month prison sentence, which was later overturned on appeal. The incident saw him stripped of the Chelsea captaincy by manager Glenn Hoddle; while in 1999 he was accused of "biting" Marcelino Elena of RCD Mallorca in a Cup Winners' Cup tie. In the 1998-99 season he missed a total of 15 games through suspension.

[edit] Leicester City

Wise's time at Leicester was less successful, and equally marred by controversy. He made just 17 league appearances and was sacked by the club in September 2002 after fracturing team-mate Callum Davidson's jaw with a punch (delivered while Davidson slept) on a pre-season tour of Finland. This incident and his subsequent successful claim of unfair dismissal (won on appeal) saw Wise become one of the most hated men in the game by Leicester fans, who along with Peter Taylor are still quoted as the key protagonists in the club entering Administration, and the subseqent poor fortunes of the club.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Millwall

Wise then signed for Millwall and became player-manager.

He led Millwall to the their first ever FA Cup final in 2004, where the (then) First Division (now called the Championship) side lost 3-0 to Premiership team Manchester United. Millwall were only the second team from outside the top flight to reach the final since 1982. Despite losing, Millwall still earned a place in the UEFA Cup for the first time, as United had already qualified for the Champions League. But they were knocked out in the first round by Hungarian champions Ferencvaros. He resigned at the end of the 2004-05 season, citing a disagreement with the new board.

[edit] Southampton

Wise joined Southampton on a free transfer during the summer of 2005 and made a total of twelve league appearances for them. With the resignation of Harry Redknapp, he was briefly joint temporary manager of the club with Dave Bassett. However, he left the club in December 2005 when the club decided to appoint George Burley as the new manager.

[edit] Coventry City

On January 19 2006, Wise signed a short-term pay-as-you-play deal with Coventry City, where he joined up once again with Micky Adams, who had been his manager whilst at Leicester City. He began his spell with Coventry by scoring a goal in each of his first three games with the club. The second goal, scored during a 2-1 victory against Hull City, was an overhead kick from sixteen yards.

[edit] Management career

[edit] Swindon Town

On 18 May 2006 Wise was appointed Swindon Town F.C. manager with ex-Chelsea team mate Gustavo Poyet as his assistant. Wise made an excellent start to the season by winning 6 out of 7 games and topping the League Two table with 18 points after a 2-0 away win against Chester on Friday 1st September. As a result of this start, Wise was awarded the League Two Manager of the Month award.

Wise's first defeat as Swindon boss came against Wrexham F.C. in the league two clash at the Racecourse Ground, Wrexham. His second defeat and first home defeat in charge of the Robins came against Peterborough United F.C. on 16 September 2006. This defeat left Swindon second in the table behind Wycombe Wanderers

[edit] Leeds United

On 20 September 2006 Wise was linked with the vacant Leeds United post following the sacking of Kevin Blackwell. On 23 October 2006 Swindon gave Wise and assistant Gus Poyet permission to speak to Leeds United. On 24 October 2006, Wise was confirmed as the new Leeds manager.

On 24 October, Wise watched from the stands as he saw Leeds crash to a 3-1 defeat in the Carling Cup against Championship side Southend United.^[1] Wise got a standing ovation from fans and in a press conference unveiling him to the media, he said that he believed that it did not matter that he formerly played for Chelsea. In the same press conference, Wise stated his aim was to bring Leeds back into the Premiership and replaced Leeds captain, Paul Butler and his vice captain Gary Kelly with the fiesty, hard tackling midfielder Kevin Nicholls, with Shaun Derry as his deputy.

His first match in charge saw Leeds beat Southend United 2-0 in the Championship.^[2] Leeds recently went bottom of the Championship for the first time in their history despite a 2-1 victory over Hull; Southend beat Birmingham 3-1 on the same night and so went above Leeds by 1 goal difference (previously Leeds were above Southend on goals scored)yet they have a game in hand. Leeds' survival hopes were given a huge boost after beating promotion-chasing Preston North-End 2-1 at home on Friday 30th March 2007, with the club leaving the bottom spot for the first time since January.

[edit] Honours

Wimbledon

FA Cup winner - 1988

Chelsea

FA Cup winner - 1997, 2000
League Cup winner - 1998
Cup Winners' Cup winner - 1998
European Super Cup winner - 1998
FA Charity Shield winner - 2000

[edit] Managerial stats

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
Team	Nat	From	To	G	W	L	D	Win %
Millwall		October 15, 2003	May 9, 2005	89	36	29	24	40.44
Swindon Town		May 22, 2006	October 24, 2006	17	9	3	5	52.94
Leeds United		October 24, 2006	Present	29	8	15	6	27.58

Updated to 4 March 2007

[edit] Notes

^ Source: BBC Sport (English)
^ Source: BBC Sport (English)

[edit] External links

Preceded by Mark McGhee	Millwall F.C. manager 2003-2005	Succeeded by Steve Claridge
Preceded by Harry Redknapp	Southampton F.C. caretaker manager (with Dave Bassett) 2005	Succeeded by George Burley
Preceded by Iffy Onuora	Swindon Town F.C. manager 2006	Succeeded by Dave Tuttle (caretaker)
Preceded by John Carver (caretaker)	Leeds United A.F.C. manager 2006-	Succeeded by Incumbent

Leeds United A.F.C. - Current Squad

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