Plymouth Argyle manager Wayne Rooney has hailed central midfielder Adam Randell’s contribution to his sides’ 1-1 draw at Derby County on Saturday.
The hosts took the lead courtesy of a stunning overhead kick scored by former Blackpool and Swansea City forward Jerry Yates, before Randell’s equaliser just before half time proved to be enough for The Pilgrims to pick up only their second away point of the season. Their only other point on the road came back in August against QPR, aside from that it is no wins and 6 defeats on their travels for Rooney’s men.
But he was very happy with the performance of the Argyle academy product when talking to Voice Newspapers, He said:
“Rands is a fantastic player; a really important player to us. He was the captain of the team today as well. It was a race to get him fit, but we managed to get there and I’m delighted he’s got 90 minutes in as well.”
Rooney also was keen to highlight his admiration for the way in which his side battled throughout the 90 minutes, when at times on the road this season they simply have capitulated far too easily:
“I thought we did well to get back in the game. We tried to take the ball and play our way in. We were also quite effective in playing balls into the channel and mixing it up a little bit, which meant we were able get back to 1-1.
“We actually started the second half okay and had good control, but then in fairness to Derby they switched to a back five and went a bit more aggressive and we didn’t deal with that as well. We had to show character to stay in the game and in the end I’m pleased to come away with a point.”
Writers View
You cannot really argue against the fact that Argyle simply have not been good enough away from home this season, bottom of the away table with just the one goal scored so you can see why Wayne Rooney is visibly delighted with the way in which they performed against a good Derby County side to earn a point.
As for Randall, he really seems to be one of the first names on the team sheet now in that Plymouth midfield and has a lot of first team experience for someone who is only 24, you could argue that if The Pilgrims are to stay up this year then he would play a huge part in keeping them in the second tier, however you could definitely see a Championship side snapping him up in the summer if they were to go down.
