The 21-year-old midfielder was visibly furious when he had a goal disallowed by VAR during England's 3-1 loss to Senegal on Tuesday (11.06.25) and the England boss admitted his fiery temperament doesn't win him many fans.

He told talkSPORT: "I see that it can create mixed emotions. I see this with my parents, with my mum, that she sometimes cannot see the nice and well-educated and well-behaved guy that I see, and the smile.

"If he smiles, he wins everyone. But sometimes you see the rage, you see the hunger and the rage and the fire, and it comes out in a way that can be a bit repulsive, for example, for my mother, when she sits in front of the TV. I see that."

The manager urged Bellingham to "channel" his energy in the right directions in order to give his game the "edge".

He said: "I think he has a certain something. I think he brings an edge, which we welcome and which is needed if we want to achieve.

"Yeah, it needs to be channelled. The edge needs to be channelled towards the opponent, towards our [aim], and not to intimidate the team-mates or to be over-aggressive towards the team-mates. Team-mates or referees, but towards opponents, yes, and always towards the solution, meaning towards winning. And we are on that.

"He has the fire and I don't want to dim this down. He should play with this kind of fire, that's his strength. But the fire comes also with some attributes that can intimidate you, maybe even as a team-mate.

"You see sometimes the explosion towards referees and the anger in his game, so if he can channel this in the right way and we can help him in this, then for sure he has the something that we need and he has a certain edge that is hard to find."