Rooney's Record: A Reassessment

A mythbusting look over Wayne Rooney's pre-Argyle record and popular arguments.

By Green and White’s Ben (notatroll)

I was absolutely baffled by the appointment of Wayne Rooney as Plymouth Argyle Head Coach. Two months later, I am no less baffled.

And yet, while I am not sheepishly putting my toys back in the pram, I am resigned to trying to enjoy whatever comes.

Make no mistake: the issues with the appointment have gone nowhere, and should be reiterated given some of the misleading narratives being perpetuated. But I can propose (what I think are) some convincing ameliorations which may give hope to the doubters.

The Worries

Let’s be honest: if any other Championship club had appointed Rooney a few months after his distinctly unsuccessful spell at Birmingham City ended, our fanbase would be ribbing its fans with varying degrees of humour. There is a reason he is rock-bottom of all the rankings of 2024/25 Championship mangers out there: the 15-game period he oversaw during which Birmingham dropped 15 places.

Though under no obligation to, the owner was good enough to issue a public statement explaining the reasoning behind the appointment. The “interview”, however, seemed to provide more questions than answers for anyone paying attention. Even if Rooney is successful at Home Park, the decision to appoint him looks a bad one. Running across a busy road isn’t validated as a good decision just because one doesn’t get hit.

Just to be clear: I have no ill will for Wayne Rooney. He certainly can’t be resented for applying for a job. He seems genuine in his conviction that he is – I quote – ‘starting over’; ‘not relying on what I done[sic] as a player’; willing to go into lower leagues than the Championship to learn and ‘improve myself’ as a manager. And he certainly seems personable: it is easy to believe the anecdotes that players like him wherever he has coached, and that he aced Argyle’s personality test.

And, having played under many of the best minds and most successful managers in history, and playing at the very top of the game for many years, it is reasonable to assume he has an impressive understanding of the game.

Sadly, though, as useful as they are, an amiable nature and a bank of knowledge and experience do not in themselves make a good manager. Or Head Coach.

The brilliant record of the current board was somewhat tarnished by the tenure of Ian Foster – which is unfortunate, since the reasoning behind the appointment seemed sound, and most of the issues that developed during his tenure were hard to foretell. At the least, most fans agreed the benefit of the doubt was warranted.

This appointment, however, smacks of naiveté, and the board risk doing serious – perhaps irreparable – damage to the deserved reputation they have acquired.

For example, in his ‘Chairman’s Interview’, Simon Hallett said some things which were misleading, or outright contradictions of established facts.

Let’s consider three points.

1. The myth that Rooney was forced to play a certain way at Birmingham City.

This was heard as an apology among the fanbase very soon after Rooney was appointed, and was reinforced by the ‘Chairman’s Interview’: “What we do know is Wayne was required to play a style of football he felt was inconsistent with the players he had there…so we’re not looking particularly hard at the data from Birmingham.”

This is completely contrary to what Rooney himself has said throughout – and, most conspicuously, following – his tenure at Birmingham City.

During his first press conference, discussing the correlation between the ambition and philosophy of the owners and himself, Rooney said: “everything we spoke about was really similar.”

In a club interview published 19th October, Rooney said of his team(s): “I always want them to be intense, front-footed; win the ball back high.”

And in an episode of Stick to Football, published about six weeks after getting the sack from Birmingham, he told Gary Neville: “Before that though – before I went in – speaking to the owners, and how they wanted the team to play – how I wanted to play; we were all aligned in what we wanted.”

Even after getting the sack, Rooney maintained the style of play was his call. While the statements made during his tenure could be interpreted as toeing the proverbial line, there is no motivation whatsoever for him to make that statement after leaving the club were it untrue. No good reason to lie. In fact, it would arguably reflect better on him if he were to claim, after the fact, that he had been compelled to play a particular style against his wishes. He did not.

So why did Simon Hallett say he was? Did Wayne Rooney tell the board he was? In which case – the briefest of investigations proves it untrue. Was he taken at face value – or the research not done? Was it an assumption? This is basic due diligence.

The statement seems to be either evidence that simple research was not conducted, or that the club wanted to perpetuate this misconception.

More worryingly, the Chairman said that Rooney being required to play a certain way the reason that the board chose not to look particularly hard at the Birmingham data. Had they, would Rooney have got the job? With two wins in 15 games?

2. The myth that Rooney wasn’t that bad at Birmingham.

The Chairman also said of Rooney’s 15 games that it was “hard to see very much in the underlying data.” This may well be true. But sometimes the big picture is more than informative enough on its own. For example, the Argyle board were able to draw a conclusion on the last permanent Head Coach appointed after one game less, sacking Ian Foster after fourteen league games while he possessed a better record than Rooney at Birmingham. Whilst there were other factors in play there, the same is true of Rooney at Birmingham: the facts are not all contained in the data.

But what of this Birmingham data that was either dismissed or difficult to extrapolate from or both? Well, dear reader; see if you can draw any conclusions from the following superficial data:

In the 11 games Birmingham played under John Eustace, their opponents had a mean end-of-season position of 13.5 with the median position of them being 14th. From these games Birmingham took 18 points, or 1.64ppg.

In the 15 games under Rooney, Birmingham City’s opponents had a mean final position of 11.6, with the median position being 11th. From these games, the team took 10 points, or 0.67ppg.

Under the variety of coaches that saw out the final 20 games of the season, Birmingham faced teams with a mean finishing position of 12.2, with the median position being 12.5. they earned 22 points or 1.1ppg.

Since – as the Chairman attested – “actual results are not always a terribly good way of looking at how much impact a manager has had on a team”, let’s look at some other – admittedly superficial – data.

Before Rooney: 1.36 Goals For/ game; 1.00 Goals Against/game.

Under Rooney: 1.00 G/game; 2.00 GA/game.

After Rooney: 1.05 G/game; 1.20 GA/game.

I’d like to suggest, that the Birmingham data – from the season as a whole – was actually quite informative.

Despite saying not much could be extrapolated from 15 games of data, and that the board ignored the data anyway, Mr Hallett nevertheless excused Rooney for responsibility of the results at Birmingham (which, to be fair, he acknowledged were poor): “it’s not as if Birmingham suddenly became a table-topping team after he left…he left Birmingham after a run of bad results, and those bad results continued…You can’t conclude that Wayne was responsible for those results.’

This is – at least slightly – disingenuous. As indicated above, performances notably improved after Rooney’s departure. To illustrate: if the form under Rooney was extrapolated over a 46-game season, Birmingham would finish with 30.7 points and -46GD. The form after he left extrapolated would equate to 50.6 points and -6.9GD. Whilst perhaps not “table-topping”, that is an eyebrow-raising improvement however you slice it. Indeed, City would have stayed up if it wasn’t for an-almost-as drastic upturn in Argyle’s results led by Dewsnip and Nancekivell. If, in the face of such figures, the board really thinks Rooney leaving made no difference, I suggest it casts strong doubts on their evaluative powers.

But given the Chairman said the data was inconclusive ( - I’d argue it isn’t - ), and that it was irrelevant anyway because Rooney was being required to play a certain way ( - he wasn’t - ) why did he still feel the need to excuse Rooney of responsibility for the poor results under his tenure? if it’s irrelevant, it needs no justification, surely? And why pick a defence that is, at best, punctured by the most meagre investigation?

The contradictions and apparent flaws in logic multiply.

3. Rooney’s prior record is excellent.

Mr Hallett said the board focused their examination of data on Rooney’s spells at Derby County and DC United.

I saw very little of Rooney’s time at Derby but the data suggests he did a decent job in difficult circumstances. Anecdotal evaluations of his tenure are mixed, and some Derby fans who have subsequently watched teams managed by both men suggest that Derby team bore more of Liam Rosenior’s fingerprints than Wayne Rooney’s. That may be unfair and even untrue, and I am happy to credit Rooney with the “success” of his time at Derby.

DC United is something of a different story.

Firstly, the comparison of MLS data to the rest of world football is a difficult business. With the salary cap and the Designated Player Rule – which is almost universally used on attacking assets – MLS teams are disproportionally “top-heavy”. Frankly, it is hard the layman – and arguably the professional – to equivalate MLS data with other ‘Other 14’ leagues.

In pre-season, Rooney defended his record in America, saying when he joined DC they were “rock-bottom of the MLS”, he “took them one point off play-offs” and since he left “they’re rock-bottom again”. Only one of these things is true. DC were rock bottom when he joined, and he took them from 14th place, 21 points and 26 goals off the play-offs to 12th place and 3 points off the play-offs. Both when Rooney said the above and at the time of writing, DC United sat 13th and 2 points (+GD) below the play-offs.

Either Rooney was embellishing the truth about his record – which would be worrying – or he was genuinely mistaken about some big details of his time at DC - which is equally worrying in a detail-oriented industry.

Whilst Rooney did undoubtedly improve DC United modestly, the improvements have been largely maintained by Troy Lesense – a coach with a 37.2 win% across 2-3 years of USL Championship (US Second Division) and nearing 2 years MSL Head Coaching experience.

The Chairman specifically mentioned the way Rooney had improved DC offensively: I’d argue it’s important to consider data in its context. I’d argue it doesn’t take a prodigy to improve the chances; xG; goals etc of a team that signed Christian Benteke to play against largely Championship- and League One-quality defenders.

For good measure, I’d like to address a fourth myth that seems to be pervasive: that Rooney has never had a preseason with a team or been able to bring in his own players. Again, I’m going to give Rooney a free pass for the Derby tenure, because even though he could bring in loans and free agents, this clearly limited his options heavily. He did very obviously, though, have a whole offseason to work with the team between his 2 seasons there. As he did at DC United, where, after joining in July 2022, was followed the same month by Carrington graduate Ravel Morrison. It is also heavily implied that Designated Player Christian Benteke was Rooney’s choice. In fact, the Birmingham job is the only one of the 3 he has had where he hasn’t had a preseason or some say in players brought in.

To summarise: the board have appointed a man who – at best has one good spell, one mildly successful spell (which doesn’t relate all that well to EFL football) and one disastrous spell on his record. And, crucially, in that order. His form is trending the wrong way – and steeply.

My worry is that Rooney speaking well in interview, being very personable, and demonstrating a breadth of knowledge has led the board to ignoring – by their own admission – the most pertinent data. To have missed the wood for looking at the trees.

To illustrate: if I was hiring a manager in a department store, a candidate who engages and comports himself well, has an extensive knowledge of relevant processes and legislation and has contacts in the industry would certainly be attractive. But if the last department he ran was a proverbial “dumpster fire”, I would require significant reassurance the candidate had learned from the experience and those issues would not recur.

In this situation, Wayne Rooney has effectively said: “I ran that department in that manner because that’s the way I like to run my department, even though I didn’t have the right staff to do it that way. And, the manager who was there previously, and assistant managers and stand-ins who followed did a significantly better job than I did, with the same staff.” And the board have decided this isn’t as relevant as the first two jobs he did – and even there the results were nothing special.

It really worries me that these conclusions can be drawn. There seem large flaws of logic. And whilst I don’t want to add negativity to the mood on the eve of the season, it would be cowardly not to make these arguments now but raise them if things were to go as wrong under Rooney as many are predicting; and it is only fair to put myself out there to be shot at by those who can find evidence for a counter-argument.

The Positives

So what, then, to focus on, to scrape some joy from the situation?

First and foremost, bad decisions can come good. It could be argued putting your lifesavings on ‘red’ at the roulette table is a bad idea – but there’s a 48.6% chance it works out. Given my evaluation of the appointment, I’d take a 48.6% chance of success right now – but however long the odds are: it may just happen. I certainly believe everyone at the club will be working their hardest to make it so, and any failure won’t be for lack of trying. As mentioned above: I don’t believe this vindicates the appointment as a good decision – but it’s certainly not doomed to failure. There is always hope.

Secondly, as quoted above, Rooney wants his teams to expressive, exciting, intense and attack-minded. In fact, the one consistent criticism of Rooney I have found across each of his jobs is that Argyle I would argue certainly have a squad better equipped to deliver this than Birmingham City did. If it will be a failure, we can hope it will be a glorious and entertaining one. As I’m sure T.S. Eliot would agree: better to go down with a bang than a whimper.

A few months of the regular season often makes a mockery of transfer business evaluation, but the club seem to have been pretty flawless thus far. Of course, at the time of writing, more business needs to be done. But the third place I am looking for some happiness is the transfer news. Perhaps if the incomings are good enough, might the team will be able to stay up in spite of any potential limitations of the manager?

If this season was shaping up like last season – with a few basket-cases looking like likely candidates for the drop – I would likely still be fuming about the Rooney appointment. If all we had to do was stay above the likes of Xisco’s Sheffield Wednesday and Neil Warnock’s paper-thin Huddersfield Town, I’d genuinely believe that a good manager would keep us up and a bad one take us down. However, there are no obvious candidates for the drop this season. Even Oxford United have recruited very well. It is arguable even a good manager would struggle to keep us up this year, which makes it much easier to stomach any potential relegation.

Lastly, I’m finding joy in the bigger picture. Good seasons happen and bad seasons happen. Nothing lasts forever, and highs are much sweeter for the lows that preceded them. Managers come and go; players come and go; even owners come and go. Sadly, even clubs can come and go. It’s become something of a cliché, but it is nevertheless true that even having a club to follow is a luxury some no longer have and which we came dangerously close to losing.

So despite all my reservations, I am looking forward to the upcoming season. I wish the Head Coach (and everyone else) all the best. After all, being written off by all and sundry is familiar territory for Argyle fans, and nothing pleases the Green Army more than bloodying the noses down which everyone is looking at us.