Football: Wise sent off as Chelsea flop

DENNIS WISE, it seems, does not play "friendlies". The Chelsea captain was sent off in his side's 4-0 defeat to Atletico Madrid in a pre-season warm-up match in Arnhem, the Netherlands, last night.

A flare-up nine minutes from full-time resulted in players from both sides surrounding Wise, after the former England international had stamped on Carlos Aguilera, who was also dismissed for his reaction. Wise may have to serve a suspension if the Dutch Football Association reports the red card to its English counterpart.

It was one of several unsavoury incidents in a bad-tempered second half. The only consolation for Chelsea fans was that with the new men still to appear - Pierluigi Casiraghi, Marcel Desailly and Brian Laudrup - the team that starts the Premiership campaign should be a lot stronger.

Albert Ferrer, the pounds 2.2m signing from Barcelona, was the only one of Chelsea's summer buys to begin the game, and he was handed the difficult task of marking Juninho, the target of a failed bid from Aston Villa this week. The former Middlesbrough man scored twice for Atletico in the first half: he exploited an unforced error by Michael Duberry for his first and soon added his second with a simple tap-in.

In the second half, Atletico were gifted a third goal when the Chelsea goalkeeper, Dimitri Kharine, allowed a 25-yard free-kick from Oscar Mena to squirm through his body and into the net. Vladimir Jugovic, a recent pounds 3m signing from Lazio, slipped the ball past the hapless Kharine for Inter's fourth goal in injury time.

Chelsea will face Flamengo in the third-place play-off of the four-team tournament, after the Brazilians lost on penalties to the hosts, Vitesse Arnhem.

Manchester United were in action in Norway and, although they gained a comfortable 4-0 win over Brann Bergen, their manager, Alex Ferguson, gained more evidence that he needs to maintain his new search for a new striker.

Ferguson has tried, and so far failed, to spend pounds 25m this summer on Milan's Patrick Kluivert and Dwight Yorke of Aston Villa. Last night United's only route to goal came courtesy of an own goal and two Denis Irwin penalties, until Andy Cole came up with a fine strike late in the game.