IN these days when Premiership footballers have access to psychologists to get their mental preparation right, perhaps someone can tell me why many of them seem to behave like morons.

Are they born with a personality defect, or does their pampered, closetted existence thrust one upon them?

Let's take the sympathetic view and assume it's the latter. Well, before the defect causes a mass outbreak of self-destruction it's time the psychologists started preaching that while winning may be all-important it is best accompanied by a little humility and restraint.

How is it that footballers so desperate for the adulation of the fans that they jump among them after scoring a goal can be seen seconds later treating match officials as though they are scum?

I don't blame Peter Reid for publicly backing his players, but privately he must be less than pleased with some of their recent antics.

Sunderland were on a huge high until they went over the top against Manchester United. Even amateur psychologists know that for big games it's necessary for any sportsman to guard against getting wound up to such a level that red mist obliterates the focus they're all so fond of talking about.

Sunderland's determination not to lose their momentum after the United defeat is highly commendable, but a lack of composure has continued to undermine them.

The result is that they go into tomorrow's tie against United's FA Cup conquerors, West Ham, with key players missing through suspension.

Kevin Phillips is not among them because his suspension for ten bookings - several of them for dissent - does not come into force yet.

But what he hopes to achieve by describing his latest booking as "a disgrace" on the club's website heaven only knows.

He claims he didn't swear at the fourth official, but judging by the snarling look on his face he certainly wasn't exchanging pleasantries.

It never ceases to astound me that players continue to harangue officials when they should have learnt long ago that such behaviour is far more likely to bring a red or yellow card than any change of decision.

Phillips is in danger of getting carried away by his own publicity, and it would help him to impress Sven the suave Swede if he cleaned up his act. And that includes not cupping his hand behind his ear towards the fans.

It might sound petty, as with jumping into the crowd or pulling off your shirt to celebrate a goal, but players must be aware that these are bookable offences on the grounds that they might incite the fans.

The days when Bobby Charlton used to celebrate a 25-yard pile-driver into the back of the net with half a smile are sadly long gone. But couldn't players just be content with hugging each other?

EVERYONE is innocent until proven guilty, of course, and Leeds were perfectly within their rights to rush Lee Bowyer from Hull Crown Court to score the winning goal against Anderlecht on Tuesday.

Judging by the autograph hunters outside the court there will be many Leeds fans who will continue to see Bowyer and Jonathon Woodgate as heroes irrespective of the outcome of the trial.

With some trials, such as the recent one involving the athlete Diane Modahl, it seems clear from the outset that the complainant is doomed to failure. But in the case of the Leeds footballers it is not yet clear at all.

Bowyer was obviously able to rise above the nerve-racking torment, possibly because he knows he's innocent. Or perhaps it's something to do with a Premiership footballer's arrogance, or there again he might just have a good psychologist.

TALKING of Diane Modahl, her case for compensation looked doomed from the moment she called Linford Christie as her first defence witness.

There will be many journalists who have tempered their comments about Christie over the years because they knew he would take them to court faster than he could run a nandrolone-enhanced 100 metres.

So it was very gratifying to read Sebastian Coe's comments about Christie this week, particularly that he was lucky to escape a ban for failing a drugs test at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

He got away with blaming ginseng then, while he claimed that the nandrolone which resulted in the two-year ban he has just completed came from an approved food supplement.

Perhaps he was telling the truth. But to be so boorish about everything, and now to dismiss the sport out of which he did so well as corrupt has earned him a damning indictment.

Rather than blasting out of the blocks to sue Coe, Christie would be well advised to slink quietly away. Perhaps he could find employment as a sports psychologist