“I’m aware Dennis might not be everyone’s cup of tea,” Ken Bates, the chairman, conceded after appointing the club’s eighth manager in the past ten years. “But this is not a popularity contest,” he added in a defiant retort to the significant minority of supporters who have opposed the notion of Wise taking charge since he was first linked with the job in the summer.

Wise found far more empty seats than autograph-hunters on an impromptu stroll along the touchline shortly after confirming his move from Swindon Town, a little more than 10,000 turning up for the latest chapter in the club’s continuing humiliation. “It’s a question of the right man to resolve a serious situation and he was the unanimous choice,” Bates said. “He’s a winner who’ll get 110 per cent from the players.”

Southend strolled into the fourth round of the Carling Cup, the farthest the Essex club have been in the competition, with a comfortable victory that they will hope to repeat on Saturday when the sides meet in the Coca-Cola Championship. That will mark the first game in charge for Wise, and with Leeds 23rd in the table he must be aghast at the task facing him on the evidence of this wretched display.

“We weren’t too sure what to expect,” Steve Tilson, the Southend manager, said after inflicting defeat on David Geddis, the Leeds caretaker manager in his only game in charge. “With Dennis sitting in the stands, you’d expect it to pick the players up and we know it’ll be a totally different proposition at the weekend.”

Gary Hooper, the teenage forward who, like Freddy Eastwood — absent last night because of illness — has prospered at Southend after arriving from Grays Athletic, the non-league club, sealed Leeds’s fate with the first two goals of his professional career.

Two minutes after Steve Hammell had opened the scoring from the penalty spot after Stephen Crainey’s foul on Simon Francis, Hooper was gifted his first by a comical handling error by Tony Warner, the Leeds goalkeeper. The 18-year-old’s second arrived shortly after the hour, when he turned the ball in from close range after Luke Guttridge diverted a centre back across goal.

Ian Moore halved the deficit on the stroke of half-time, but it failed to spark anything like a Leeds revival and leaves Wise — who officially takes charge today with his assistant, Gus Poyet — with a mountainous task to halt the club’s slide towards League One obscurity just five years after they topped the Premiership. “Anybody coming to this club with the state we’re in and with confidence low has got a massive job,” Geddis said, rather ominously for the new broom.

LEEDS UNITED (4-4-2): A Warner — G Kelly, M Kilgallon, P Butler, S Crainey (sub: R Bayly, 70min) — I Westlake, F Richardson, J Douglas, E Lewis (sub: R Cresswell, 70) — I Moore (sub: R Blake, 87), D Healy. Substitutes not used: N Sullivan, S Carole. Booked: Crainey, Douglas.

SOUTHEND UNITED (4-4-2): D Flahavan — L Hunt, E Sodje, A Barrett, S Hammell — S Francis, K Maher, P Clarke, M Gower — W Paynter (sub: L Guttridge, 19), G Hooper (sub: C Wilson, 89). Substitutes not used: S Collis, J Smith, F Moussa. Booked: Francis, Maher, Paynter.

Referee: M Dean.

NEW BOSS IS 'A BORN WINNER'

DENNIS WISE’S former manager, Dave Bassett, believes that the new Leeds United manager will win around the supporters who did not welcome his arrival.

“You can stick Dennis Wise up your a***,” was the chant to Ken Bates, the chairman, from the terraces at a recent match prior to the appointment.

However, Bassett, who signed an 18-year-old Wise for Wimbledon, insists his former protégé will soon have them changing their tune. “There has been hostility towards Dennis from the Leeds fans and that feeling will persist until they get to know him. But, mark my words, he will win them over,” Bassett said.

“Dennis is a born winner and leader, and that is something Leeds fans can identify with. Their club has enjoyed great success in the past, and they badly want it again. It will not take them long to realise he is the man to deliver their dreams.”

Bassett nevertheless warns that Wise’s task will not be easy: “Dennis will have his work cut out because that team is not good enough to get into the play-offs this season.”

Swindon Town last night named captain Ady Williams as their caretaker manager.

MICHAEL MORGAN

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