Premiership: O'Leary's warning for Mills

David O'Leary has warned Danny Mills he risks damaging his club and international prospects if he does not clean up his act on the pitch.

Mills plays his final Premiership match of the season for Leeds against Fulham before starting a suspension after being shown his 10th yellow card of the campaign.

O'Leary admits Mills' absences from the team have hit Leeds hard, but also could affect the defender's chances of winning a place in Sven-Goran Eriksson's 23-man England squad for the World Cup finals.

The Leeds boss told a British tabloid: "He's got to clean up his act next season, because we can't afford to lose him the way we have been.

"And I don't think the England manager can afford to be picking him if he's like that."

Mills' latest suspension is his fourth ban of the season but O'Leary insists he rates him very highly, and he put in a decent performance in the centre of defence for England on Wednesday as a second-half substitute in the 4-0 friendly victory over Paraguay.

"Danny is a good lad who's versatile, young and who will get even better, but he does stupid things, and that stupidity has got to come out of him if he's going to improve. This will be his fourth suspension of the year and that's not right," O'Leary added.

"We can't afford to have a player of his quality out for so long. He did himself a lot of good on Wednesday.

"He showed that he can do a job at centre-half if somebody gets injured, but I still consider him to be a fill-in for that position, albeit a good one."