Wayne Rooney at Plymouth: A final chance to build a lasting managerial career?

When Wayne Rooney was in the youth team at Everton, there was a particular car he craved — a black Volkswagen Golf with tinted windows which, at the time, was owned by Steven Schumacher, the captain of that academy side and a peer he looked up to. Rooney even tried to buy the vehicle from his team-mate, but to no avail.

Who would have imagined that, two decades later, the pair would walk similar paths to the extent one would succeed the other in the dugout at Plymouth Argyle?

Schumacher had led the side from December 2021 after stepping up from an assistant’s role and delivered promotion to the Championship in 2023 but left to manage Stoke City of that same division in December. His replacement Ian Foster was sacked after less than three months and caretaker coaches Kevin Nancekivell and Neil Dewsnip, the latter also the club’s director of football, took the reigns for the run-in, saving them from relegation on the season’s final day.

All that left a vacancy which many applied for and, from a shortlist of four including Paul Heckingbottom, who had managed Sheffield United in the 2023-24 Premier League, the ex-captain and record goalscorer for both Manchester United and England’s national team (Harry Kane has since surpassed him for the latter) was chosen.

Rooney had played under Dewsnip in the Everton youth teams but their relationship didn’t extend further than that. His application and his desire to improve impressed those on the board at Plymouth and, after completing a task on the final interview stage, he was offered the job that evening and was announced on May 25.

The initial reaction to the news was mixed at best, and at times vitriolic.

Among those he consulted before taking the job were predecessor Schumacher and Mark Hughes (not that one), the latter being a former assistant at the Devon club and now with Schumacher at Stoke and also a former team-mate of Rooney’s at Everton. Former Manchester United forward Rooney had been out of work for five months following a disastrous stint at Birmingham City, who ended up relegated to the third tier, failing to recover from a dire mid-season spell.

Rooney, to his credit, did well initially at Derby County in difficult circumstances in his first crack at management after retiring as a player there in 2021. But following uninspiring subsequent spells at D.C. United of MLS and Birmingham, many wonder whether this is already, at age 38, his last chance in management.

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In one of Rooney’s first weeks in Plymouth, he visited the Morrisons supermarket next to their Home Park stadium. After checking out his purchases on a self-service machine, he realised there were no carrier bags available, so had to take the items away in his hands.

His experience shopping in the transfer market this summer has been a bit more seamless.

While he had experienced a pre-season with financially troubled Derby three years ago, this was the first time he was able to spend money as a new manager — back then, Derby were under a transfer embargo, while he joined between windows at both D.C. United and Birmingham.

Plymouth had a turnover of £30million ($38.3m) last year in English football’s second tier — up from just £7m five years ago when they were in the League Two. They have a larger budget this time — it’s still meagre in comparison to some of the bigger clubs in the division, though, and they are in talks with several potential investors — and their specialist data and recruitment team are casting the net further afield to target more players who can fit their system most adequately.

Nathanael Ogbeta and Victor Palsson have arrived on free transfers — the latter played under Rooney at D.C. United — while Darko Gyabi (Leeds United), Muhamed Tijani (Slavia Prague) and Ibrahim Cissoko (Toulouse) are there on loan. Money was not spent on a signing until Tuesday, five days before Plymouth’s opening fixture of the season, when Kornel Szucs arrived from Hungarian top-flight side Kecskemet. The fee for 22-year-old defender Szucs is officially undisclosed but it is not in the realms of record-transfer territory.

Rooney says he is happy with his squad but will move if the right player becomes available.

That leaves the door open for the addition of a Finn Azaz replacement — the attacking midfielder had a fruitful 18 months on loan at Home Park from Aston Villa of the Premier League but was sold to Championship side Middlesbrough in January this year for £2.5million — although Rooney has backed 18-year-old Freddie Issaka to fill that void after impressing in pre-season.

Success for Plymouth this season will also be contingent on the futures of Morgan Whittaker and Michael Cooper. Interest has surrounded the pair but no suitors have come close to meeting the valuations the club have placed upon them. Forward Whittaker, 23, who was voted onto last season’s Championship team of the season after scoring 19 league goals for a relegation-threatened team, has been subject to interest from Scottish Premiership side Rangers.

“I think when you look at what Morgan did last season, and then you’re seeing the money teams are paying for other players who didn’t do half what he did then I think it’s a real insult, to be honest, the bid we’ve had for Morgan,” Rooney said on Friday.

“Morgan is really happy here. I have seen no indications that he wants to leave the club. And Michael Cooper is here. I can’t be as enthusiastic as I am on Morgan, but Michael Cooper is here, he’s training well and he’s ready to play on Sunday. That’s where we are at with the two of them.”

Goalkeeper Cooper rejected a new contract earlier in the summer which would have made him the club’s highest-paid player. Sheffield United, now back in the second tier after last season’s Premier League relegation, have shown interest in the 24-year-old, who has less than a year left on his current deal.

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Rooney’s previous visit to Plymouth before joining the club came last December, during his two-month stint at Birmingham. After that game at Home Park, a 3-3 draw a couple of days before Christmas, he got lost in the stadium car park after a member of staff had moved his car, and walked around for half an hour trying to find it.

That episode may have been a metaphor for his brief time at St Andrew’s. But Rooney is no stranger to scrutiny.

He had hoped his stellar playing career with Everton, Manchester United and England would translate seamlessly into management. But the almost five months from getting sacked at Birmingham to being made Plymouth head coach — his longest time out of a job having gone straight to the Derby dugout after a short spell as their player/manager, followed by just over a two-week break between leaving that club and going to D.C. United, then a mere 48 hours from departing MLS to arriving at Birmingham — offered time for reflection.

The negativity around his appointment was widespread but Rooney gave the first signs of turning it around while working as a pundit for the BBC at the recent European Championship in Germany, his erudite analysis impressing viewers and building on similar stints with fellow UK broadcaster Sky Sports in the second half of last season. His media work will continue now he is at Plymouth, with Rooney contracted to his former Manchester United team-mate and Sky colleague Gary Neville’s YouTube show, The Overlap.

Away from the cameras at Euro 2024, Rooney was working around the clock, speaking to his players via Zoom and preparing presentations for potential new signings.

When the Euros group stage ended in late June, he made his way back to Devon, south-west England, to prepare for pre-season. One of the first things he did was appoint Pete Shuttleworth, his trusted No 2 who has been with him at all the clubs he’s managed so far, as assistant head coach. The club also tied defender Brendan Galloway, another Everton old boy, to a new, two-year deal.

“I used to play a bit…” Rooney said in his first speech to the players when they reported for pre-season. It wasn’t arrogance, more an unassuming tone lined with confidence. More importantly, it broke the ice quickly, just as in the story above involving his lost car. In the days that followed, he made himself known to members of staff at all levels, many pleasantly surprised by his relaxed, down-to-earth character.

Speaking on The Overlap, Rooney said his managerial methods during pre-season differed from those he experienced in his playing days at United and that he flipped the script, with gym sessions in the mornings and football work in the afternoons. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, however, with the schedule alternating based on the requirements for a particular day.

Time on the training pitch has yielded positivity, with Rooney aiming to create an empowering environment.

Youngsters including Issaka and fellow 18-year-old Caleb Roberts — who have both excelled during pre-season — have been encouraged to express themselves and play with freedom. At the other end of the scale, 33-year-old team captain Joe Edwards, who has struggled with injuries in pre-season, was alongside the coaching staff during the fixture against non-League neighbours Torquay United two weeks ago and Rooney gave him the floor to deliver a speech before the game.

Rooney has been open and approachable but is aiming to drive high standards on the training pitch. He has bemoaned sloppiness in possession during pre-season, especially while trying to play out from the back and through midfield. Intensity is another key theme, especially when pressing from the front. “When we come away from that and we are a little bit passive, I think that plays into other teams’ hands,” midfielder Jordan Houghton said after last Saturday’s 1-0 win at League Two side MK Dons in the final warm-up game.

Promising relationships are beginning to form on the pitch, though — notably between summer acquisitions Ogbeta at left-back and Cissoko as the left-winger. Ogbeta often inverts in an attempt to leave Cissoko in a one-v-one situation. In-game flexibility has been good, too, with the team able to set up well with either three or four men at the back.

“It’s really great to work with him (Rooney),” midfielder Adam Forshaw tells The Athletic. “The first time I met him, I was a bit starstruck, but he makes you feel so comfortable. We’ve had a few good chats and we know a few mutual people with us both being from Liverpool, so I’m loving it. You hang off anything he says and you can tell he has a massive passion for the coaching side and delivering his knowledge to us. It’s been brilliant so far.”

Away from the club, Rooney has tried to immerse himself in the community, visiting local restaurants and interacting with supporters. Early in his tenure, he said he would never refuse a signature or a selfie and he has remained true to his word so far — at pre-season games, he stayed an hour afterwards, speaking to supporters, building a connection and breaking down those initial barriers.

During the squad’s pre-season camp in the Spanish city of Marbella, he was a willing participant in Q&A sessions with fans who travelled out from the UK. It was an effective exercise in repairing a relationship between supporters and the club’s management which had been fractured in the months prior.

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There is a Liverpudlian flavour that runs through Plymouth Argyle these days.

Rooney is their fourth manager in succession from there, following Ryan Lowe, Schumacher and Foster. Dewsnip, the director of football, also hails from Merseyside and coached both Rooney and, a few years later, Forshaw in Everton’s academy. Attacker Callum Wright is from Liverpool, too, and was another developed in Everton’s youth programme. Chief executive Andrew Parkinson was director of operations at Liverpool before making the move south in 2019. Palsson had a couple of years at Liverpool from 2009, containing their reserves and being on the fringes of the first team, and Galloway, as mentioned, is another with Everton on his C.V..

“It’s always nice; anywhere you go, if there’s another Scouser in the team, we’re like a big family,” Forshaw says. “Everyone knows there’s an affiliation with people from Liverpool down in Plymouth. It makes you feel at home a bit.”

With Rooney now steering the ship, the first destination for 2024-25 proper is Sheffield Wednesday away today (Sunday).

Danny Rohl, his opposite number at Hillsborough this afternoon, serves as a good example of someone who has re-energised a club’s fanbase following a malaise.

Rohl’s high-intensity style won over Wednesday supporters already bracing themselves for instant relegation back to League One when he took over last October with just three points on the board (zero wins in 11 games and only five goals scored), and he was able to lead them to Championship survival.

Plymouth have been tipped to struggle this season but Rooney is determined to drive them up the table, rebuild his managerial career and prove his many doubters wrong.

Additional reporting: Nancy Froston

(Top photo: Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)