An hour after Wayne Rooney’s sobering reinstatement as Championship manager, a unkind chorus of Sheffield Wednesday fans rang out: “You’ll be sacked tomorrow morning.”
Even by football’s standards of hiring and firing sharpshooters, that would be madness, but there was precious little positive to come out of the first game of Rooney’s latest foray into the precarious profession.
His Plymouth team were overwhelmed and beaten on all counts in South Yorkshire on Wednesday. The visitors managed just one shot on goal in the entire game – an Adam Forshaw free-kick in the 26th minute that was easily saved by James Beadle in the Wednesday goal.
This was an alarming indication of what was to come for Rooney in his fourth job and he subsequently read the riot act to his players.
“I think this is a wake-up call for all of us,” Rooney said. “Everything about the game today I didn’t like.”
“You can lose football games, but you have to make sure you run, tackle and get the ball. The fundamentals of the game were not good enough and that is not acceptable.”
“You can use any tactics you want, but if the fundamentals aren’t right, you lose the game. I’m disappointed, angry and surprised after everything I’ve seen from the players in pre-season.
“I don’t think it’s time to panic. I didn’t like the performance today at all, but we have to stay calm and that doesn’t change our ambitions of what we want to achieve this season.
“The players know what I think. I told them after the game that if I see a performance like that from a player, whether he has been at the club for a long time or is new to the club, they will not play.”
Much depends on Rooney’s return as Championship coach after his disastrous tenure at Birmingham City.
In January, he was sacked after just 83 days in charge. During that time, under his leadership, the club slipped from sixth to 15th place, a reversal of fortunes that ultimately led to the club’s relegation.
Few managers who have failed so badly have been able to get back to the same level so quickly, but the Rooney name clearly still has a strong appeal.
His progress at Plymouth, however, will be closely watched. After a respectable start to his coaching career at Derby in near impossible circumstances, Rooney failed to make a breakthrough at DC United in the MLS and left the club after the team failed to make the playoffs. Then came Birmingham. The English football star certainly cannot afford another failure at Plymouth if he wants to make a success of his coaching career.
Rooney had five summer signings in his first starting XI at Hillsborough, but it was Wednesday’s new arrivals who made the far greater impression, with a goal from Jamal Lowe and an outstanding debut from Yan Valery at right-back.
