ANDY GRAY 'S COLUMN: Believe the hype and pay the price

WHEN Mark Bosnich was a youngster I was convinced he would be the best goalkeeper in the world.

Ron Atkinson and I had him at Villa in the early 90s and he was sensational. The lad was dedicated and focused on what we all thought was going to be a wonderful career ahead.

What has happened to him is absolutely tragic and you wonder if this is one gifted footballer who believed all the hype in those early days of promise and let it throw him off course.

And that's why Steven Gerrard, and any other young star, should take a long hard look at Bozzy because he is the perfect example of a player who had it all, couldn't handle it, and let it destroy him.

I am not for a minute suggesting Gerrard is going to get into the kind of trouble Bosnich is in at the moment, but the moral of the story is there for all to see. If you let stardom go to your head then it will always end in tears.

There is obviously a problem with Gerrard because Gerard Houllier has taken the drastic step of taking a situation out of the dressing- room and onto the pages of the nation's papers. Maybe someone should have done that with Bosnich before it was too late.

If a manager does put a problem in the public arena it usually means that all other efforts have fallen on deaf ears. The tone of the message was that Gerrard has lost the plot because he is beginning to believe all the hype that has been written about him, much the same way as we praised Bosnich all those years ago. There was also a hint that maybe his lifestyle is also letting him down.

Using the press to dish out a bit of shock treatment is a last- resort tactic which has been used before. Sir Alex Ferguson has done it a couple of times with David Beckham, but only after efforts to deal with it behind closed doors have failed.

If I was Steven Gerrard I would have been upset that my manager had seen fit to tell the world and its aunt that it was time to raise my game ... unless I had ignored early warnings to get my act together after a man-to-man chat about what he felt had gone wrong and why.

Houllier is no fool so I can only imagine Steven got what he deserved when the Liverpool boss decided to get his point across in the papers.

But this tactic doesn't come without the risk of it backfiring. You have to know the player extremely well because if you misjudge his character it could make matters worse and you end up losing the player completely.

I hope it doesn't happen with Steven because he seems a strong young man mentally, but I'm still interested to see how he reacts.

I have seen him play a few times this season and although he has not been at his best I don't think he is facing a crisis. His form has been inconsistent and if it was anyone but Steven Gerrard you probably wouldn't be concerned at all. The fact is that any sign of a young international-class player losing his focus has to be dealt with immediately.

If Steven has got a bit carried away with his stardom Houllier would be wrong not to nip it in the bud immediately. There is always a danger of this with youngsters who make headlines early in their career which is why David Moyes at Everton is keeping Wayne Rooney out of the limelight as much as he can.

There have been plenty of youngsters who believed all the hype early in their careers, were convinced they were going to be world- beaters, then disappeared without trace because they sat back and lapped it up rather than continuing to prove their worth on the pitch.

Form is temporary, class is permanent and Steven Gerrard has a real chance of being a class act.

I said that about Bosnich when he was a kid. Unfortunately for him something went badly wrong after he left Aston Villa. He was never really wanted at Manchester United and he failed to resurrect his career at Chelsea. Unfortunately he seems to have been more interested in the bright lights than his career and now I fear it is all over for the lad.

Footballers can't be expected to live like monks but they there is a limit and it would be a crying shame to see any other youngsters waste their talent like Mark has.

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