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Wayne Rooney admits first red card as a manager was deserved as he explains what happened

Wayne Rooney admits his first red card as a manager was deserved as he explains what happened in Plymouth’s 2-1 win against Blackburn.

The 38 year old acknowledged he shouldn’t have acted in the manner he did, leading to the first red card of his managerial career.

It came during the closing moments of the Championship fixture, Rooney dismissed after he reacted angrily to Blackburn’s controversial equaliser being allowed to stand.

Blackburn levelled through a looping header from Joe Rankin-Costello, but Rooney felt that the goal should have been disallowed due to a foul on Ryan Hardie in the lead-up.

His response from the technical area resulted in referee James Linington issuing a red card, his first as a manager.

Rooney said to talkSPORT, quotes via Plymouth Live: “It’s my first time as manager receiving a red. Decisions happen on the pitch and I think looking back it’s a free-kick so the goal shouldn’t have stood.

“In the Championship you don’t have VAR. The officials missed it and your emotion kicks in. I’m a passionate person, we want to win. We worked extremely hard to win the game and to have that taken away by a mistake by the officials I felt was really harsh.

“I reacted in a manner which I probably shouldn’t have and the red card was deserved from that point of view, but beyond that the fans were fantastic. It galvanised the stadium, the players and we kept pushing trying to get the winning goal.

Rooney was able to celebrate shortly after when Morgan Whittaker scored a dramatic winner for the Pilgrims in the 97th and final minute of stoppage time from the players’ tunnel.

While jubilantly celebrating, Rooney accidentally broke the glasses of club secretary Zac Newton, who was with him at the time.

He added: “Me and the club secretary in the tunnel were celebrating (when Whittaker scored) and I broke his glasses! I think it was a deserved win, but sometimes it boils over a little bit and that’s the nature of football.”

He’s expected to serve a one-match touchline ban when his side play their next game, which is not until after the international break, away to Cardiff City on Saturday the 19th of October.

Wayne Rooney was teased by his Plymouth players after getting sent off, as per BBC Sport, the players spoke about the potential fine for his dismissal with one of them even heard asking, “How much of a fine are you paying, gaffer?”

Plymouth assistant head coach, Pete Shuttleworth, was quick to defend Rooney’s reaction.

Speaking after the game, Shuttleworth said: “He’s still passionate. You’ve all watched him play for many years and you know that passion is what drives him.

“He has still got that passion on the touchline.

“He likes to be calm and calculated at times as well and see the game, and that’s his management style, but you’re never going to take that out of Wayne.”

Shuttleworth said he and the rest of the Plymouth bench are sorry for their actions.

“We were angry and in those situations that’s the passion that comes out. If we’ve offended anyone there at that point we apologise,” Shuttleworth added.

“We’re quite a nice bench really, we speak to officials in the right way most of the time, but that really angered us.

“Probably the frustration that we hadn’t killed the game by then, but also the fact that we were convinced it was a foul and it should have been given.

“You saw your hard work maybe going out of the window at that point, and that’s probably why the passion overstepped.

“We were desperate to win that game before the international break and get the result we deserved.”

The result means that Plymouth are 14th in the table with 11 points from 9 games played while Blackburn are 8th with 15 points.

Blackburn’s John Eustace said post-match: “I thought for the first hour we stayed in the game. The plan was to always open it up in the last half an hour with the positive changes. We didn’t want to concede the goal in the manner we did.

“The lads stuck to the task and when we brought the subs on, we thought there was only one team that was going to go on and win the game.

“We scored a good equaliser and had some good moments after that, so to concede in the manner we did is really disappointing and something we have to work on.

“In the first half we won the ball back in the opposition half but we weren’t good enough in the final third and our decision making wasn’t good enough. We knew we had a good bench and the game opened up when the subs came on.

“It is really disappointing, we got ourselves back into the game and it looked like we would go on and win it. It was disappointing we didn’t see the game through.

“We had a game plan, but we didn’t look after the ball well enough.”

Here’s how fans reacted as Wayne Rooney admits his first red card as a manager was deserved as he explains what happened…

@Had_enough_onX: Well fucking hell what a game of football. Rooney getting sent off for the sweetest of left foot strikes of the water bottle in to the crowd. 😂😂#pafc

@KevCOYG: I tweeted @SimonHallett when the rumours first circulated, to say I thought this was a bad decision; and since then, I’ve been proved wrong at every stage. Sent off? Brilliant- can you imagine Foster ever caring enough to get sent off? Keep it up, Wayne 💚💚💚

@WoolwellG1970: The referee was awful the whole game. Just wanted to make a name for himself. Moron

@StansburyDarren: Another incompetent official getting off on sending Rooney off.

@Thomas34813091: I’m surprised a clip hasn’t emerged yet of Rooney booting the bottle into the crowd out of frustration…. I saw it happen live and he went over and put his hands up to apologise but probably a red card 100% #pafc

@OfficialRazorB: Referee has been piss poor all match should never be able to referee.

@JamesGl52721844: Shocking officials as usual. Big team bias at all levels of football is disgraceful

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