Wayne Rooney was told in a phone call from Andrew Parkinson, Plymouth Argyle’s chief executive, late on Monday night that his time at the club was over. In truth, though, the message had been more forcibly conveyed by the club’s travelling fans at Oxford United 24 hours previously.
Chants of “Wayne Rooney, your football is s***”, “You’re getting sacked in the morning” and “We want Rooney out” were directed at the former England international after a 2-0 defeat that extended the club’s winless run to nine matches and left them rooted to the bottom of the Championship.
When asked about his prospects by reporters after the game, a visibly despondent Rooney accepted “you have to look at every possible outcome”, and a meeting of Argyle’s directors on Monday concluded that his time was up.
For Rooney, it is a blow. He arrived at Plymouth determined to restore his reputation after a bruising 83-day spell at Birmingham City, which itself followed an uninspiring stint at D.C. United.
Yet he leaves with another failure on his managerial CV, his period in England’s South West characterised by poor results — the loss at Oxford was Plymouth’s 11th in 13 away games this term — questions over his tactics and criticism of his off-field behaviour.
The Athletic has spoken to multiple sources closely connected to Plymouth and Rooney, who wished to remain anonymous to protect their positions, to understand what went wrong for him and where he goes next.
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The sad scenes that accompanied Rooney’s final game at Oxford felt a long way from the surge of optimism that greeted his arrival in Devon on a three-year contract in May.
While some fans had misgivings over whether Rooney was sufficiently experienced to steer a squad that had finished 21st in the Championship the previous season into safer waters, the club seemed well set up.
Rooney already had a relationship with Argyle director of football Neil Dewsnip, who he knew from his time at Everton’s academy, which was a big factor in him getting the job, and there was financial stability under popular chairman Simon Hallett.
Rooney was all smiles at his Plymouth unveiling alongside CEO Andrew Parkinson (left) and director of football Neil Dewsnip (Steven Paston/PA Images via Getty Images)
He moved into a waterside apartment in Plymouth’s Royal William Yard and the majority of Argyle’s supporters appreciated Rooney’s efforts to integrate himself in the city. He would generally return to his home in Cheshire — where his wife Coleen, and children Kai, Klay, Kit and Cass still lived — once, or sometimes twice, a week depending on the fixture schedule.
In his first press conference, Rooney said he wanted fans to “come and say hello” if they saw him in the city and joked about how he had sold Plymouth to his wife Coleen as “the Monaco of England”.
He was spotted at the Seco Lounge cafe bar and joined fans at the Cider Press pub, where he performed the Ed Sheeran hit ‘Shape Of You’ during karaoke at the end of August, with clips of him singing appearing on social media. He was also pictured at Bar Rakuda on the city’s waterfront, with the establishment announcing him as their “new regular” on Facebook.
Wazza on the beers at the Cider Press 😅 #pafc pic.twitter.com/5A0h8zVqm6
— Emma (@ParamedicEm) August 29, 2024
Rooney was initially working as a pundit for the BBC at Euro 2024 when he was hired by Argyle, but he spent the rest of his summer organising Zoom calls with his new players and preparing presentations for potential new recruits. He took part in Q&A sessions with fans who travelled to Marbella for Argyle’s pre-season camp and told The Overlap — the podcast presented by his old Manchester United team-mates Gary Neville and Roy Keane, and ex-Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher — that he would be doing more hands-on coaching, having largely delegated to his staff at Birmingham.
But the tone for the season was set on the opening day when Plymouth were crushed 4-0 at Sheffield Wednesday, one of many heavy away losses. Defeats at Cardiff, Leeds, Norwich and Bristol City saw Plymouth leak 18 goals, with Rooney struggling to contain his frustration at his players’ performances.
“I could probably put the under-18 team out there and they wouldn’t concede six goals, so I’m very disappointed, angry,” he said in his post-match press conference after the 6-1 Norwich thrashing.
One Plymouth source told The Athletic it was felt the players were not robust enough to perform week after week at the intensity Rooney wanted. Plymouth have one of the lowest wage bills in the Championship and spent less than £2million ($2.5m) on transfers in the summer, mostly on young players.
Their average starting line-up is the sixth youngest in the division this season, at 25 years and 84 days, and few of the squad boasted Premier League experience. Yet others within the club felt that Rooney should have been more proactive with the squad, especially around tactical plans and performance analysis.
With the club tumbling towards the Championship relegation zone, questions began to be asked about Rooney’s future. Yet Plymouth’s hierarchy remained steadfast in their backing. Hallett told a fans’ forum on December 2 that the club planned to support him, pointing out that the club had suffered a damaging sequence of injuries to key players and saying that Rooney would be backed in the January transfer window.
That feeling was echoed by Dewsnip, who told BBC Radio Devon: “(Wayne’s) driven to turn the ship around. We’re all behind him, we’re all fighting alongside him. Wayne talks about how he’d love to be safe with at least four games to go, so that’s kind of where the target will remain until we’ve achieved it.”
There were changes behind the scenes, with assistant manager Pete Shuttleworth, who was living with Rooney, departing in early December. Rooney, who had given Shuttleworth his blessing to combine his work at Plymouth with a role on the Republic of Ireland coaching staff, said in a press conference that it was a “personal decision”. He was replaced by the experienced Mike Phelan, who Rooney knew from his time at Manchester United, but the switch failed to have the desired effect.
Results continued to decline, culminating in a 4-0 hammering by Frank Lampard’s Coventry on Boxing Day, with all four goals coming in the first half, and then the Oxford defeat that proved terminal.
Rooney applauds Plymouth’s travelling fans after what proved to be his last game at Oxford (Isabelle Field/Plymouth Argyle via Getty Images)
Staff at Argyle subsequently told The Athletic they had felt Rooney had been drifting for the last two months, and questioned how invested he was in what was becoming an increasingly tricky job.
To them, small incidents, insignificant by themselves but damaging in cumulation, began to count against him. In November, a round of interviews with journalists, including The Athletic, designed to reveal how Rooney was working and embracing life in a new city was cancelled at short notice. A surprise visit by Rooney to a primary school in Plymouth was also pulled at the last moment on the same day.
Rooney missed one training session this season, according to multiple sources, but the club insisted this was due to him being unwell.
Rooney’s trips to pubs and bars in the city, which had initially endeared him to the fans, were now held against him, particularly as he has spoken openly in the past about his relationship with alcohol. He once told the Mail on Sunday he regularly went on secret two-day drinking binges at home as he struggled with the pressures of fame.
There was an online backlash when photos — taken in the summer but only widely circulated this week — emerged of him drinking at the Skiving Scholar, a student pub near the city’s university. The club and Rooney’s camp declined to comment when approached by The Athletic.
Rooney had to spend time apart from his wife Coleen and son Kai (Anthony Devlin/Getty Images for Disney+)
More allegations circulated on Monday when a video was posted online of Rooney letting a woman into his Plymouth apartment. He posted a statement on Instagram denying any inappropriate behaviour, saying the footage had been taken out of context.
“The video shows a man and woman looking around my apartment,” he wrote. “The couple kindly gave me a lift home and were in there at the same time as my son who was visiting. The footage is from last summer.
“It is annoying that at least one online newspaper has chosen to edit the footage to make it appear as though a woman entered the apartment on her own. That is simply not true.”
Most damaging, however, were Argyle’s results on the field and the effect they were having on morale. A source close to one of the Plymouth players told The Athletic the atmosphere at the club was low and the players were eager for a change as they did not feel as though Rooney was doing enough to change things and shore them up defensively away from home. Another club source questioned the sense of direction the now-former head coach was taking the team in.
Yet this view was not universally shared. Midfielder Adam Forshaw had told The Athletic in August that he would “hang off anything he says” and that Rooney’s “massive passion for the coaching side and delivering his knowledge to us” had been evident. More recently, striker Ryan Hardie told the Daily Mail how the head coach’s suggestions on his movement had improved his finishing.
Ryan Hardie enjoyed working with Rooney (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
And there were high points during his Plymouth reign, particularly at home. Dramatic wins over Sunderland and Blackburn Rovers, and some impressive comebacks against Preston and Watford, proved that the spirit within the squad had not completely crumbled, as did the team’s ability to produce late goals (they scored nine between the 75th and 90th minute in home games under Rooney).
Rooney was also hampered by injuries to key personnel, including to his captain, Joe Edwards, Northern Ireland international goalkeeper Conor Hazard and forwards Morgan Whittaker — an attacking talisman who has attracted interest from other Championship clubs — Ibrahim Cissoko and Muhamed Tijani. Summer recruitment has also been patchy, with signings Rami Al Hajj, Daniel Grimshaw, Kornel Szucs, Victor Palsson (who played under Rooney at D.C. United), Andre Gray, Michael Obafemi and Darko Gyabi enjoying mixed success so far. That could lead to Dewsnip also coming under scrutiny in the coming weeks.
Plymouth’s executives admired Rooney on a personal level and considered him to have been an effective unifying figure after the divisive tenure of his predecessor, Ian Foster. They wanted to give him the time to turn the club’s fortunes around, but once it became clear that fans had turned, their attitude hardened.
Conscious that a home defeat to local rivals Bristol City on New Year’s Day would provoke a potentially toxic atmosphere, they decided to act. Edwards and first-team coach Kevin Nancekivell took charge temporary charge of that game against City, steering the team to a 2-2 draw courtesy of yet another late equaliser, while a shortlist of permanent candidates is drawn up
Rooney’s playing career means he will always have a cachet; it is one of the reasons why Plymouth hired him in the first place, with his personal brand helping to boost the club’s profile.
It was revealed in mid-November that his spell as Argyle would be the subject of a documentary, produced by Lorton Entertainment, which would also help drum up interest in the club. Filming began at the start of the season, with cameras shadowing Rooney both on and off the pitch. The project’s fate is unclear.
Rooney will not be short of media work. He still appears semi-regularly on The Overlap and has previously worked with Sky Sports and the BBC, so it is unlikely he will be off television screens for long.
Rooney’s arrival at Home Park excited fans — initially at least (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
Yet his willingness to take challenging jobs in the Championship suggests his passion for coaching, and determination to stay involved in the sport which has been his life since childhood, is genuine.
His farewell statement at Plymouth, released on the club’s website, thanked Argyle for the opportunity they had given him and that they would always “hold a special place in my heart”.
Inside, however, Rooney will be hurting. This was his opportunity to prove that his messy exits from Birmingham and D.C. United were aberrations in an otherwise promising coaching career. Instead, it is another blemish on his CV. Quite where he goes next is uncertain.
(Top photo: Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
