Plymouth Argyle looked to be in extremely promising form heading into this weekend’s match with Cardiff City. However, the Welsh outfit stunned everyone with a 5-0 victory.
Cardiff began the day at the foot of the table, as the lowest-scoring side in the league. An emphatic 5-0 win, with Wayne Rooney watching on from the sidelines for Argyle, has restored the home fans’ faith and sent Plymouth’s into bewilderment. Pete Shuttleworth took charge of the Pilgrims, who went down to ten men just four minutes before half-time.
Ibrahim Cissoko, who appeared to have picked up a knock in the international break for Netherlands’ under-21s, was excitingly announced in the starting lineup. But a loss of temper after a ball was kicked into him caused the 21-year-old to retaliate and consequently receive a red from Andrew Kitchen.
25 shots, with 11 landing on target, kept Daniel Grimshaw extremely busy with a lacklustre performance from the back line in front of him. Six saves from the 26-year-old wasn’t enough to prevent goals from Alex Robertson, Rubin Colwill, Anwar El-Ghazi, Callum Robinson and substitute Chris Willock.
What went wrong for Plymouth?
Whether the lack of leadership from the sidelines put the players off or a ten-man side for an entire half led to this capitulation, Rooney described the performance as inexcusable. Speaking to the Plymouth media team, the former Manchester United legend had this to say:
“Very surprising after the strides we’ve made over the last few weeks. To come here and lose the game the way we have done is not acceptable really. I think throughout the game we were outfought, they won tackles, we missed a lot of tackles out there today.
“Really disappointing. The important thing is we get over this quickly because, having known the players and seeing the players over the last few months that’s not this group; that’s not the mentality. So we have to move on very quickly.”
Wayne Rooney reacts to today's defeat.
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— Plymouth Argyle FC (@Argyle) October 19, 2024
Writer’s View
Understandably, Rooney is keen to show a reaction in the coming weeks to combat this dreadful performance away from home. Cissoko losing his head has meant that the Toulouse loanee will, at the very least, miss a trip to Millwall on Wednesday.
The Plymouth manager handled the situation very well in the media reaction and his lack of involvement, due to a touchline ban, may have affected the way his team performed against Cardiff. Despite being an unacceptable showing, Rooney still believes his team are capable of the performances shown prior to this match.
