The rush has begun to hasten Wayne Rooney back to a television studio. After his short spell in charge of Plymouth Argyle was brought to a predictable end on Tuesday morning, he is being told he has blown his shot at management and that he should give it up.
Maybe he will be minded to listen. The final stages of his time at Home Park took on a rather bruising hue, complete with the usual off-stage noises about his social life and the challenges of being separated from his family, who are based near Manchester.
I hope he doesn’t listen. I hope someone gives him another chance in management, at whatever level, because someone of his experience, someone of his ability as a player, someone with his standing in the game and someone with his generosity of spirit and empathy can make our game richer.
Maybe I’m saying that because I spent some time with him when he was in charge at Derby County and saw him performing miracles at the club to keep them in the Championship for a season when they were beset by crippling financial problems. It is hard not to feel that a man like Rooney still has a lot left to give.
It will be lower down the leagues if it happens. Or perhaps it will be abroad somewhere. That’s the reality of management when you have struck out twice in your last two jobs. But he isn’t even 40 yet. He is still learning. Why should he not pursue that course?
He has a talent for the job. His time at Pride Park proved that. That was about as far away from a silver spoon assignment as it was possible to get and Rooney thrived in it. He could thrive again elsewhere.
Wayne Rooney does have a talent for management despite his Plymouth sacking
The job he did at Derby County in tough circumstances proves he has what it takes to succeed
But we must not sugarcoat things – his time with Birmingham was an unmitigated disaster and his stint with Plymouth was not much better
Maybe being on Sky Sports or the BBC would scratch the itch for him when it comes to staying in the game. But maybe it wouldn’t. Football is all he has ever known and it feels like the height of haughtiness for people to be telling him he has no place in it any more.
If you know anything about Rooney, you know he needs the game. If you have read anything about him, you will know that he found it hard to cope with dips in his career at Manchester United and shut himself away in a room at home, drinking, not seeing the light.
He will be suffering now, too. Wealth does not protect you from that kind of despair, as so many still seem to think it should. The game is Rooney’s life-blood and he has plenty more to pay back into it.
Look, it is always a treat to visit Home Park. A lovely stadium with a great atmosphere and one of the best fan bases in the game, in a beautiful part of the country, and something about it that makes it feel like an independent republic of football within our four top divisions.
But even though it is a fine club that often punches above its weight, let’s not pretend that Rooney was handed the keys to the kingdom when he was appointed the manager of Argyle in the summer.
Argyle are a proud club but they escaped relegation from the Championship by the skin of their teeth last season and this season, it was always going to be a struggle to keep them up whether it was one of England’s greatest former players at the helm, or anyone else.
Rooney was not a success at Plymouth and it was not a surprise when Argyle announced they had parted ways with him on Tuesday morning with the club rooted to the bottom of the table and four points adrift of safety.
But even though some chose to sum up his time in charge with language that suggested he had brought the apocalypse with him to the West Country, it’s not as if he had run Manchester United into the ground as Ruben Amorim is doing.
I admire him for taking on difficult jobs and not retreating to the easy option of punditry
He needs football – it is his life-blood – and he still has so much to pay back into it
Plymouth are bottom of the Championship, but they only survived on the last day of 2023-24
Rooney can still find success despite another managerial disaster, writes Oliver Holt
He did not possess the experience or the managerial know-how to create the kind of spark that an habitual underdog like Plymouth needs to thrive, the kind of spark that Neil Warnock ignited with the Green Army a long time ago, the kind of spark that Ryan Lowe and Steven Schumacher fanned into flames more recently.
But it appears to be a particularly English phenomenon to greet the failure of some of our greatest players to succeed in management with unadulterated glee and to proclaim that because he failed at Plymouth, Rooney should abandon all hope of ever becoming a boss again.
Rooney has done management the hard way. He has fed off scraps since he retired as a player. And even if it is convenient to forget it now, the reality is that he did a remarkable job in desperately difficult circumstances when in his first post as boss of Derby County.
Derby were crippled by financial problems when Rooney was there but, aided by the talented coaching of Liam Rosenior, he kept them afloat in the Championship for longer than many others could have.
His reign at Birmingham City was pretty much an unmitigated disaster. Plenty of managers have one of those spells on their resume. His time there was born under a bad sign when the club sacked a popular manager, John Eustace, when the club was flying. Rooney was never really able to surmount that obstacle and the club’s fortunes spiralled.
There is no point sugar-coating that. Nor is there any point saying that because it didn’t work out there or at Plymouth, it can never work for him anywhere again.
I admire Rooney for trying. I admire him for not taking the easy option and sitting in a warm studio. I admire him for putting himself out there, in jobs where he knows the odds are stacked against him, in jobs where he knows his detractors will be coming for him, and trying to prove himself.
He doesn’t need the money but he does need the game. I hope it doesn’t turn its back on him.
