The career of Darron Gibson, a player with huge potential as a youngster, has taken a sour turn in recent years with personal problems overshadowing his early promise.

Gibson is facing a possible jail sentence after admitting a second drink-drive charge in the last three years and has seen his contract terminated by former club Sunderland.

Manchester United scouts listed Gisbon as one of their five most wanted youth players in the world alongside the likes of Gerard Pique and Giuseppe Rossi before getting their man in 2005.

Sinead O’Carroll, speaking on the Sunday Paper Review, believes talented youngsters need to be offered better protection if they want to avoid a similar fate to Gibson.

“Over the last couple of months we’ve had a big conversation about how society interacts with sport and its successful sports stars,” O’Carroll said.

“If it does come easy for you from a young age, you are idolised by your peers. It’s about making sure that framework around them through family, clubs and schools are in place.

“I think we do need to be more cognisant of when we are propelling our young men into those arenas that we are giving them the tools to cope with that.

“I don’t want to sound like I feel too sorry for Darron Gibson because of the harm he could have caused with drink driving. But I do think there is a conversation to be had about how we mind our young stars.”

Gary O’Toole highlighted Paul Rowan’s piece in The Sunday Times about Gibson’s struggles and shared his concerns over how players with personal issues are dealt with in elite sport.

“There’s a piece in the column talking about Wayne Rooney, Jonny Evans and Gibson arriving to training dishevelled. Rooney and Evans stayed on at the club and Alex Ferguson showed him [Gibson] the door.

“That’s perhaps not the support you would like to think [is there]. And that’s history repeating itself with the Bryan Robson and Paul McGrath dynamic that was there.”

Written by James Hopper