Will this season be the end of Plymouth Argyle's survival hopes & Wayne Rooney's managerial career?

• Wayne Rooney left his managerial role at Plymouth Argyle on Tuesday.
• The club are bottom of the Championship with just four wins all season.
• It’s the second time in under a year that Rooney’s left a Championship team after poor runs of form. 
• The Manchester United legend was sacked by Birmingham City in January 2024 after winning just twice in 15 games. 

Seven months after becoming manager of Plymouth Argyle, Wayne Rooney left by mutual consent on the last day of 2024 with the side rooted to the bottom of the Championship.

The Pilgrims did well to avoid relegation last season, staying up on the final day of the season with a 1-0 win against Hull City. Manager Steven Schumacher left in December to join Stoke City, while his replacement Ian Foster only lasted until April, meaning that a new manager was needed for the new season. 

Was a relegation battle a foregone conclusion?

Plymouth would once again have been among the favourites for relegation this season, regardless of manager. The signings they made over the summer hardly set the world alight – forward Andre Gray was probably the most high-profile, and while the Jamaica international was a solid Championship striker at his peak, he’s now 33 and had spent the previous couple of seasons in Greece and Saudi Arabia. 

The defensive midfielder Victor Pálsson, a signing from Belgian side Eupen, is the same age. He was known to Rooney from their time together at D.C. United, but he doesn’t look up to scratch in England.

The majority of their other signings were either unproven in English football, seemingly of League One quality, or lower-tier Championship standard. Plymouth don’t have the riches of many Championship clubs, though chairman and majority owner Simon Hallett has poured plenty of investment into the club over the years since taking over in 2018.

Previously, he’s stated a desire to establish Plymouth as a top-six Championship club that harbours Premier League hopes by 2028, and his sustainable approach has been praised, but it’s still true that the Pilgrims might struggle to attract the same calibre of players as some of their rivals. 

And, for all he’s done in getting Plymouth from League Two back to League One and then into the Championship for the first time since the 2009-10 season, the recent appointments of Foster and Rooney must be seen as serious missteps.  

Does Rooney have a future in management? 

Rooney, whose last job was with Birmingham City also in the second tier, was chosen as the club’s new permanent manager in May, and from the beginning was a controversial choice. At Birmingham, he was sacked after winning just twice in 15 matches, seeing the club fall from the play-off places to 20th place, and has been blamed by a number of fans and pundits for their eventual relegation. 

So far, the Manchester United legend has done little to dispel the notion that the best players don’t always make the best managers. While he was generally seen to have done a decent job at Derby County under difficult circumstances, his time managing D.C. United in the US was unspectacular and his Birmingham spell was, in all honesty, disastrous. 

His spell at Plymouth was hampered by a number of injuries, with the likes of joint-top scorers Ibrahim Cissoko and Morgan Whittaker both among those to have spent time on the sidelines, and this is something that should be taken into account, but it doesn’t excuse what has been a disappointing half-season.

Rooney will likely always be compared to others in England’s so-called ‘Golden Generation’ of the 2000s who have ventured into management, most notably Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard. None of them have been able to replicate their success as players on the managerial front, but Lampard at least has made a solid start in his role as Coventry City manager, including beating Rooney’s Plymouth 4-0 on Boxing Day.

Gerrard is currently at Al-Ettifaq in the Saudi Pro League following a torrid eleven months at Aston Villa, and manages the likes of Georginio Wijnaldum, Demarai Gray and Seko Fofana. It’s arguably Michael Carrick, who Rooney also played with at Man United, who’s doing the best for himself with a good spell at Middlesbrough.

The future for Rooney and Plymouth

So, where does Rooney go from here? By the end of this season, he could well have played a big part in relegating two teams from the Championship, his decent spell at Derby largely forgotten. No matter what a big name he is, it would be difficult to see another team in the Championship or above taking a chance on him. 

Given the struggles of Man United, some fans and commentators have joked that they could take a chance on him at some stage, and stranger things have happened before, but it would still be a major shock to see him manage the club. 

Upon taking the Birmingham job in 2023, he revealed he’d turned down an offer to manage in Saudi Arabia. If another opportunity in the country came about now, however, it might be more likely to see him take it. His managerial career may not yet be totally dead in the water, but somewhere out of the glare of the English media might be a better bet.

As for Plymouth, they might be bottom of the Championship table but they haven’t been cut adrift. While it would certainly not be a surprise to see them relegated, a roll of the dice at this stage of the season could save them. Former managers Schumacher and Ryan Lowe have been suggested as among the favourites to replace Rooney by some bookmakers, with former Millwall manager Neil Harris and Russell Martin, last of Southampton, also reportedly in with a shout.

If the Pilgrims do go down, however, they should be well-placed to bounce back up. As difficult as League One can be to get out of, their squad looks suited to the third tier, so this could well be a blip in what’s been an impressive gradual rise from the club.

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