WHEN Danish referee Kim Milton Nielsen brandished the red card at Wayne Rooney last Wednesday, the whole country, with the exception of ally Rio Ferdinand, moved quickly to condemn the player's actions.

Rooney raising his hands at the match official to sarcastically applaud a decision to book the Manchester United striker realised many people's fears: that he is capable of pressing the self-destruct button at any time.

A player who does not turn 20 until next month is sure to still have a large degree of petulance, but for those citing that as an argument ask yourself this: Would Michael Owen have done that five years ago? Of course not.

Now ask yourself a similar question. What about a teenage Paul Gascoigne? Most probably.

Therein lies the problem Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson, England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson and the Football Association face.

Does English football want arguably the greatest talent since Gazza to head down the same erratic road as the cheeky Geordie, or do we want him to follow the example set by Newcastle's £16m club record striker. For England's sake let's hope it's the latter.

Ferguson will choose to deal with things inside the corridors of Old Trafford, while Eriksson will hope the United boss can work the sort of magic that eventually managed to control the hot-tempered characters of Eric Cantona and Roy Keane - or at least to a degree.

There is a school of thought that both Keane and Cantona's more mild-mannered approach to the game arrived with experience rather than man-management.

However, there is no hiding from the fact Ferguson's guidance from the top played its part in calming two of the Premiership's most controversial figures.

Now for Rooney. In four years as a professional he has 33 bookings and been sent off twice. That, unfortunately, does not tell the whole story.

Although he kept his temperament intact at Anfield yesterday, his sending off in the Champions League fixture at Villarreal last week was only the latest example of a young, extremely rich player brought up on the working class streets of Liverpool, showing how quickly he can snap.

A week earlier he had launched a tirade at David Beckham in the dressing room at Windsor Park having been held back from going too far in his protests to the referee during England's defeat to Northern Ireland.

There was also the occasion when he was hauled off before the red card was issued during England's friendly with Spain, while he angrily taunted Liverpool supporters after scoring the winner for Man.United at Anfield in January.

It is for all of those reasons that Rooney - an extremely gifted forward expected to be crowned the best young player in the world at the FifPro Awards today - should be encouraged to seek professional help.

The whole country should not try to change the nature of the beast completely, so to speak, but he should be guided towards taking a few deep breaths instead of snapping as soon as he sees red, or yellow in the most recent case.

A relatively naive Beckham managed to channel his aggression in the right manner after bouncing back from his sending off for his pettish kick-out at Argentina's Diego Simone in the 1998 World Cup - an action that also warranted the red card in Mr Nielsen's eyes.

Now Rooney needs to react to his latest transgression in a similar manner or England's dreams of success in Germany next June could end up just as they did in France seven years ago - down the tunnel.