Chilled Roo gets dug in
ROONEY DAY finally dawned – and it was absolutely freezing.
Is this what management is going to be like? Freezing your wotsits off in the dugout watching your team struggle to get anything more than a point.
Wayne Rooney, well wrapped up, sat on the bench on his first day as a coach and endured this draw.
QPR manager Mark Warburton claimed the ‘Rooney Factor’ helped his team and revealed: “We used some of the press comments that we were ‘cannon fodder’ today.
“We said that to the players. They are professional and they get angered by certain comments.”
One-up with a Martyn Waghorn 23rd-minute freekick, Waghorn then gave QPR an equaliser when he brought down Bright Osayisamuel four minutes into first-half added-time.
Eberechi Eze put the penalty away and from then on Rooney watched as Derby ended a five-game winning home run with this limp draw. Rooney had looked a little embarrassed when he went out on the Pride Park pitch and was introduced to the crowd.
He almost got to the centre circle, waved, put his cold hands back in his pockets and was gone.
“He sat at the back of the dugout where it was about three degrees warmer,” smiled Rams boss Phillip Cocu. “He can’t play for us until January but this time on the bench will allow him to get to know those he will be playing with.”
Derby hardly deserved the lead when Waghorn lifted his free-kick over the defensive wall. But Rangers, thumped at home by Nottingham Forest in their last game, were sharper, better and deserved their equaliser.
There was no question that Waghorn fouled the quick and tricky Osayisamuel but how Eze scored, in breaking his run to the spot, upset Cocu.
Cocu asked ref David Webb about it and the answer was that if Eze had stopped his run just before his shot then it would not have been allowed.
The explanation was as clear as mud but the man who copped it most was Waghorn.
Cocu said: “It was an unnecessary tackle. The only thing Osayi-samuel could do was look for contact and get the penalty.”
One for player-coach Rooney’s notebook.