Alarming Plymouth Argyle feature v Leeds United will concern Wayne Rooney | OneFootball

It was a tough afternoon for Argyle at Elland Road

Plymouth Argyle's performance against Leeds United on Saturday was nothing but a disaster.

Their 3-0 defeat to Leeds United was flattering and has raised serious alarm bells for Wayne Rooney.

Argyle have found themselves in a sticky patch once more.

After a fantastic comeback from 3-0 to draw 3-3 versus Preston North End, you'd expect some momentum going into the Leeds game, but momentum was the least of their concerns.

The performance has arguably been the worst of any Championship side this season, with the Pilgrims generating a shocking 0.0 xG. Yes, 0 shots, and even 0 corners.

Argyle saw three goals fly in within eight minutes, 15 minutes before the interval, as Dan James, Joel Piroe and Brenden Aaronson all got on the scoresheet, which surprisingly were the only goals to come for the rest of the game.

No doubt it was always going to be a tricky encounter going to one of the league's best in Leeds, but Rooney's side showed nothing on Saturday that warranted any sort of support from the travelling Argyle fans.

With this in mind, it raises an alarming factor which Rooney needs to address quickly before things turn extremely sour.

It has been a tricky start to life for Rooney, and it is still early days.

The Manchester United and England legend will be pleased by his side's few wins this season, however, he'll know in himself that the performance against Leeds was unacceptable.

Plymouth became just the second team in the Championship to not register a single shot in over a decade, the last time it was registered by Opta was the 2013/14 season.

This makes pretty grim reading for Argyle fans, who will no doubt be frustrated by the fact they made the 10-hour trip to see a loss, but to not even see a shot is inexcusable.

Argyle fans will be angry, but it is probably too early to suggest they will be on Rooney's back, with the Pilgrims boss having the chance to put things right on Tuesday night against fellow strugglers Portsmouth.

Rooney after Leeds thrashing on Saturday: "We have to move on very quickly"

The last thing the Plymouth boss would want to do on Saturday is speak to the media, because, what do you even say after such a rare game of football?

Rooney spoke to BBC Sport about the shambles of a performance by Argyle, with the suggestion that the game was done early on.

"I think the result was probably the right result.

"We knew coming here today was going to be a very difficult game, over the last few weeks we've picked up some key injuries in key positions for us, so we knew today was going to be very difficult.

"We tried to come and be resilient and not open up too much - we knew we'd have to defend the box a lot and I thought we did that well up until their first goal.

"Then it's a crazy seven minutes where we concede three and the game's done, so very disappointed with the result, and we have to move on from this game very quickly."

Argyle in need of striker recruitment in January

This game wouldn't come as too much of a shock after seeing Plymouth's goal scoring record this campaign, but even then, 0 shots is still quite disturbing.

The Pilgrims average just 1.0 goals per game, the joint third worst in the league, but that's also quite difficult when you've created the lowest big chances in the Championship, with just 11 across 13 games.

Surely, Rooney must be looking into the Striker department this winter. They've got an array of options up front, but none have really proven their worth this season. Even the ever so reliable Ryan Hardie has struggled with just one goal across the 13 encounters.

Mustapha Bundu is seemingly an option off the bench and Muhamed Tijani is expected to be out of action until February.

Their aim must be to bring in a capable number nine who can take the minimal chances that Argyle create. No side should even fathom the thought of 0 shots within 90 minutes.

It's a statistic which cannot happen again, or Rooney will find himself in very deep waters.