Wayne Rooney: Plymouth Argyle did not do the basics in Cardiff City drubbing

Wayne Rooney served a touchline ban as his Argyle side were thumped 5-0 by bottom-of-the-table Cardiff

Wayne Rooney admitted it was 'difficult to put into words' his thoughts after Plymouth Argyle's 5-0 drubbing by Cardiff City on their return to Championship action following the international break.

The Pilgrims were second best all overt the pitch in a performance which was worryingly reminiscent of their season-opening 4-0 rout at Sheffield Wednesday in August. And, to make matters even worse, Dutch international under-21 winger Ibrahim Cissoko now faces a three-match suspension after he was sent-off shortly before half-time.

Goals from Alex Robertson and Ruben Colwill gave bottom-of-the-table Cardiff a firm grip on the game before Cissoko was red-carded when he reacted angrily to having the ball kicked into him by Perry Ng as he was on the ground after being tripped by Ollie Tanner.

Cardiff were totally dominant in the second half and could easily have had more than the three goals they added to their tally, which came from Anwar El Ghazi, Callum Robinson and substitute Chris Willock.

Rooney said: "My reflections on the game are I thought we actually started okay. We had decent control early on and we should be one-nil up.

"Michael (Obafemi) had a great chance and then beyond that we got really sloppy. We have given the ball away a lot, we didn't win tackles, we weren't aggressive enough, we didn't do the basics right.

"In this league if you don't do that then you lose and you have very difficult days like today. Very disappointed. For me, I know that's not that group of players in there. I think what we have seen since the first game of the season is a real energy and aggression.

"We have lost games but we have been in them. We have had good chances to take something out of them, where today we were never really in it after they scored the first goal.

"Of course going to 10 men makes it a lot more difficult but I think even before that we were struggling to get any momentum and any patterns of play after the first goal. We weren't getting to the ball. It was a really disappointing day."

Argyle's task when trailing 2-0 got even harder when Cissoko was dismissed in the 41st minute. Rooney said: "Their player (Ng) has been quite clever and very dangerous I feel. He has certainly kicked the ball at Ibs on purpose.

"That could have been a different colour card to what he got. For Ibs, he has reacted in the wrong way and he has picked up the red card, which certainly didn't help the team. It's difficult the emotions of the game, and sometimes you get reactions from players and unfortunately that has happened to us today."

Rooney replaced Rami Al Hajj with Jordan Houghton for the start of the second half in an attempt to make sure Argyle did not fall further behind, but that plan did not work out as Anwar El Ghazi made it 3-0 in the 51st minute and that was game over effectively.

He said: "My message at half-time was 'Be hard to play through' and we didn't want to concede any more goals. I had good attacking players on the bench and I was looking to try to get towards the last quarter of the game at 2-0 and then make them changes and go for it.

"With 10 men it's always a concern that if you open up too much you concede goals. We actually went the other way. We went with five in midfield where they were causing us problems.

"I haven't seen the goals back but it looked like the third one was very sloppy and from there it becomes a very difficult game for us. Then you are making changes looking at Wednesday (when Argyle are away to Millwall) and you know you are more than likely not to get anything out of this game.

"I think every goal is avoidable, of course they are, but today we have to give Cardiff a lot of credit as well, they were a much better team and they deserved the victory. Sometimes you hold your hands up but what I can't accept is we didn't do the basics of the game, and we have got so many fans who have come and supported us."

Argyle are now winless in five away Championship games this season, and have scored just one goal while conceding 12, ahead of their midweek visit to Millwall.

Rooney declared: "As I have said before we have had some really good performances away from home but we haven't picked up the win. We keep looking at trying to change the results.

"We are looking at different ways we can do that. Whether we go a bit more stubborn and defensive or we go more front-footed. It's something which we are constantly looking at to try to take more points away from home.

"It's something we need to keep doing because we have got a lot of away games coming up, and another tough one on Wednesday away to Millwall. I think that's the one positive from today. We have got another one coming up so quickly.

"That's an opportunity for us to try to get that win away from home, but it's not nice when you come in after a game like that, a performance like that, a result like that. It's very difficult for us to find any positives whatsoever.

"It's really important we move away from this game as quickly as possible and try to put in performances like we have done in previous games."

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