Wayne Rooney: Plymouth Argyle boss wants team to improve ‘unpleasant aspects of game’

Wayne Rooney says his Plymouth players need to learn to cope better with “unpleasant moments in games” after their Draw 3-3 with Preston.

The Pilgrims came back from 3-0 down to earn a point thanks to Morgan Whittaker’s stoppage-time equalizer.

But Rooney was far from happy with his side’s performance as they dropped to 21st in the Championship, one point above the relegation places.

“The one thing I never doubt about the players is their character, they keep going until the end – they’ve shown that several times this season,” Rooney told BBC Radio Devon.

“But we need to be men – these are unpleasant moments in the game.

“For so many years, foreign players coming into the league – and we’ve played in different countries – they’ve been a little smarter than us and we need to improve on that. We need to learn the little nuances of the game.” “

Former England captain Rooney added: “I’m not going to sit here and say ‘cheat’, I’ll just be a little smarter.”

“There are little things like that where players cheat the referee, it happens in the game and foreign teams are always better at it than us and I think sometimes we can be a little naive and we need to get rid of that.”