ANDY Hessenthaler confessed the need to cool his fiery enthusiasm or risk finding himself in serious trouble with referees.

Gillingham's player-manager was cautioned for the fourth time this season in Saturday's 2-0 defeat at Leicester where he risked being sent-off following persistent skirmishes with referee Trevor Parkes.

As the players left the field at half-time, he had to be restrained by fellow midfielder Mark Saunders as he clashed with the referee.

When the two teams emerged for the second half, Hessenthaler carried on his heated tirade with the Birmingham official.

So close had he sailed to risking a red card in the first half, that there was speculation he would withdraw himself at the break. The Gills boss and his players were incensed with Leicester's first goal, vigorously protesting that goalkeeper Jason Brown had been fouled.

"I went close today. That's my fourth booking and I'm not pleased with it," said Hessenthaler. "But that's my game.

"I'm aggressive and I can be a nightmare. But if you take that away from me then you take my game away.

"Sometimes you feel you don't want to play the game any more when you get refereeing decisions go against you as they did today. I thought the referee became intimidated by the home crowd. "

Asked who would restrain him in the future games, Hessenthaler joked: "Maybe I'll have to bring my wife along to all our games because she's pretty strong and can handle me. But you won't change me because that's the way I've always played the game."

Nominating Leicester as the best side Gillingham had played so far this season, he said: "I have no complaints about the result because we didn't play particularly well today. The disappointing thing for me was that we spoke all week about the need to play at a high tempo from the off today and that never happened."

Guy Ipoua's ankle injury, which forced his half-time substitution, means he will almost certainly miss Saturday's match with leaders Portsmouth at Priestfield.

Rod Wallace and Tommy Johnson, signed to spearhead Gillingham's attack this season, will probably start in tandem for the first time against Pompey.

Leicester manager and former Gillingham favourite Micky Adams admitted his old club's impressive start to the season had worked in his team's favour.

He said: "I'm sure that a lot of teams don't treat Gillingham with the respect they deserve. But this season they got off to a real flyer which has made a lot of clubs sit up and take note."