Managerial novice dragged into relegation battle
Hnovice has been dragged into a relegation battle as the Championship club’s problems look daunting
There were many times in his playing career when, with his back to the wall, or in the most unpromising of circumstances, the great gift of talent that Wayne Rooney had to fall back upon was enough for him to win the argument, whatever the odds.
It was possible, at times, to take issue with the decisions that had put him in a difficult position but the solution – a game-changing goal, a performance of exceptional skill – always felt unanswerable. Rooney the player almost always found a way. What to make of Rooney the manager, now facing a game at Pride Park a week tomorrow that feels fundamental to the fortunes of Derby County. Rooney’s team are in an eight-game struggle to stay in the Championship, where the bottom of the table looks like the proverbial pub fight – it is hard to make out who could be said to be winning. Games in hand, managerial sackings,
Going wrong: Wayne Rooney’s Derby side have just one win in nine games fluctuations in form, Football League charges – it is, to put it mildly, all kicking off. Derby have one win in nine, with six points over that period, meaning that failure to beat Luton will see them dragged into the struggle by their lapels. An interesting start to Rooney Part II: the manager. For the most celebrated English player of his generation this felt like a good idea when he took the job. Since then the Derventio Holdings takeover has tanked spectacularly, and there was a sale of young players in January to fund the few signings he was permitted in the same window.
In other Derby news, the EFL is appealing the independent decision to drop charges for profit and sustainability breaches it levelled against the club last year. That hearing was last weekend, and Derby deny any wrongdoing.
This week they appeal the £2 million compensation awarded against them by a tribunal over the dismissal of their former captain Richard Keogh. Somewhere in the midst of it is a rookie manager fighting a relegation battle that was, in no small part, bequeathed to him by his predecessor, Phillip Cocu. There is much that can be laid at the door of Derby and the accumulation of many mistakes over many seasons, culminating in the misplaced faith in the now collapsed takeover. As for Rooney himself, who by November had not yet completed even his Uefa A licence coaching qualification, you have to wonder whether this was the ideal place to launch his managerial career. There is a school of thought that says all experience is valuable for young managers, but there is also, for the unprepared, the possibility of being overwhelmed.
While his contemporary Steven Gerrard joined Rangers with a staff he had been able to hand-pick – for their range of experience, in Scottish football and elsewhere – it was very different for Rooney. He inherited the three who work most closely with him. Shay Given, now a first-team coach rather than a goalkeeper coach; Liam Rosenior, who was clear he also wanted the manager’s job; and Justin Walker, who also does much of the day-to-day coaching.
One suspects that Rooney could have used an old team-mate like Darren Fletcher, now in a senior role at Manchester United, as he was plunged into taking charge of a club in crisis. The overnight transition from team-mate to manager is not an easy one, and Derby did not so much appoint as rearrange. Steve Mcclaren is an experienced technical director, with his son, Joe, head of recruitment, but Rooney has been very firm that he calls the shots. Derby try to play a possession-based game, although form has been elusive. Three half-time Rooney substitutions against fourthplaced Brentford rescued a point nine days ago. In defeat by
Stoke on Saturday, they were dismal, without a single attempt on target. Cocu and Rooney between them have used more players – 36 – than any other side in the Championship and January’s signings were designed simply to stave off relegation. Going in the other direction was much of the young talent, including George Evans, Morgan Whittaker, Kaide Gordon and a collection of unnamed academy prospects. The question if Rooney survives this relegation battle is how he might feel about the prospect of another next season.
Rooney is too big a concern not to have other opportunities in management, although they rarely come in the ideal circumstances. But at some point as a manager he will have to decide what identity a team of his should have, and the kind of players he wants – as well as the kind he does not. It is hard to imagine, given his own precocity as a young player, that he would have been delighted to see the better young players leave. His old boss Sir Alex Ferguson would advise those embarking on a career in management to make choices on their view of the chairman or controlling power, rather than the club itself. Rooney is one of those who would never have to worry about being denied the opportunity – his only concern is whether he would have all the skills ready in place to take it.
As for the challenge that Derby presents, one could spend a lifetime preparing and still not be ready. The Championship’s top six clubs are managed by men with dramatically different careers as players, albeit since then each has lots of hard-won coaching experience in different roles and settings. Not many survive at that level without it.