Plymouth Argyle: Player and staff questioning of Wayne Rooney revealed | OneFootball

Rooney was sacked after Plymouth's final game of 2024.

Players and staff at Plymouth Argyle began to question Wayne Rooney's commitment to the club before he was sacked after their loss to Oxford United, according to The Athletic.

The pressure was on Rooney from the get-go at Home Park. His recent managerial record didn't suggest that he was the perfect option to take a team that had just finished 21st in the Championship to a better place, especially given that his former side, Birmingham City, who were being managed by Gary Rowett at the time, were the ones that finished just below them in the relegation places.

In a full circle moment, it was Rowett's new side, Oxford, that put the final nail in the Manchester United and England legend's Plymouth coffin, not long after his former international teammate Frank Lampard put the penultimate one in just a few days prior with a 4-0 win for Coventry over Plymouth.

Now Argyle are on the hunt for a new boss, again. They've had three permanent managers and interim spells since the start of last season, with ex-managers Ryan Lowe and Steven Schumacher now available to potentially come back to the club.

Plymouth Argyle: Internal questions over Wayne Rooney revealed

From the first game of the campaign, a 4-0 loss to Sheffield Wednesday, Rooney was on the back foot. He wasn't dealt the best of hands as a result of many injuries to key players, but it has now emerged that some people within the club began to question the former boss before he had even exited the club.

The Athletic were told by elements of Plymouth's staff, following Rooney's sacking, that they were unsure of how committed he was to the football club and the task at hand during a difficult period.

They added that the players were keen for a change to be made. With a declining atmosphere around the club, they wanted someone else to lead them - someone that was going to make more of an effort to turn things around than they felt Rooney had.

Wayne Rooney's coaching future is up in the air

One positive thing you can say about Rooney is that he clearly has a passion for coaching and still wants to be involved in the game. But there is that old saying that rings very true at the moment: the best players don't always make the best coaches.

Rooney is probably the best player to ever come out of England, certainly on pure footballing ability. He can do things that 99 percent of people could never dream of doing on a pitch, and that can work against him sometimes.

The way he often wanted both his Birmingham and Plymouth sides to play was in a way that didn't necessarily suit the abilities of the personnel at his disposal.

A record of taking two clubs towards relegation battles in successive seasons is rarely going to impress many clubs. He won't be short of punditry work in the industry, with broadcasters already touted to be lining up big offers for Rooney.

That may be the closest he can get to the game for a while because it doesn't feel like he's got too much of an immediate future as a coach.