Wayne Rooney wants Plymouth Argyle reaction after Norwich City debacle

Wayne Rooney has called on his Plymouth Argyle squad to be resilient and hard to play against when they take on Bristol City at Ashton Gate on Saturday.

The Pilgrims return to Championship action after their embarrassing 6-1 defeat by Norwich City at Carrow Road on Tuesday night, when they fell behind in only the second minute on their way to a seventh away league defeat out of nine this term. Rooney wants to see a 'positive reaction' from his players against Liam Manning's 12th-placed Bristol City, who have won two and lost three of their last five outings.

"It's important to stay in the game and make sure we don't concede early on," said Rooney. "Of course, the previous result has an affect on players, on players' confidence, but we have to go there and be resilient. We have to be hard to play against.

"It was my final message to the players at Norwich before we went out: 'Don't concede early because if we concede early we know it will be a long night against a good team'. We need to make it more difficult for teams to score."

Argyle have conceded the first goal in seven of their last eight games, and in each of the three most recent matches - away to Derby County and Norwich and at home to Watford - that has been inside the opening eight minutes.

Rooney said: "It's not easy when you see a performance like we saw in the Norwich game - for players, staff, fans. The most important thing now is the reaction to that result.

"Of course, we have got injuries to a lot of key players but the amount of times I speak to players who come up and believe they should be playing, it's really important when they come into the team they take their opportunity. I don't think any of the 11 players who started the last game did themselves any favours with that. We have got an opportunity now on Saturday to try to put that right."

He added: "When you concede a goal there has to remain a period of calmness and go back to what we have worked on, and try to get out of it that way. I feel, certainly away from home, when we do concede we don't react the way I want."

When asked whether he was tempted to adopt an ultra defensive approach and 'park the bus' against Bristol City, Rooney replied: "We went to Leeds and did that, and we lost the game.

"We are trying to do different things and it comes down to personnel, an inner fight as individuals but also from players collectively as a team. I think you have to have that pride. Of course, you can lose football games - I have said this before - but when you lose a game in the manner of what we did against Norwich that's not what anyone wants to see.

"Myself and for the players, we have a lot of responsibility to try to move this club forward. What we saw on Tuesday night was not good enough and was not acceptable - the players know that. The main thing now is we show a real positive reaction."

Argyle's hammering by Norwich came after crushing defeats away to Sheffield Wednesday (4-0) and Cardiff City (5-0) earlier in the campaign, but it followed a three-game unbeaten run in which the Pilgrims had picked up five points. Rooney said: "Of course, it was a bad result but this season there is many positives as well. I think we need to bring some realism to the situation.

"There is lots of positives throughout the season but there has been two or three big results against us, which we need to cut out because that certainly doesn't help anything."

On whether he felt under pressure as Argyle head coach, Rooney said: "There's always pressure on any manager. When you lose games in a bad way, of course there is a lot of pressure on the manager, on the players, on everyone - and no-one wants to see that. It's my job to try to make sure we get that right."

Argyle are 20th in the Championship table, with 17 points from the same number of matches, after the thrashing by Norwich. Rooney continued: "I think we need to be realistic in terms of where we are at. We know what our goal is for the season.

"We have got a plan and we are on plan at the minute. We are where we should be, obviously, the table doesn't lie from that point of view, but I think whether you have got a small budget or not, you have to have that desire, that fight, to not concede goals as easy as we do. That's a responsibility on myself to make sure I bring that out of the players and on Tuesday that didn't happen."

Despite Argyle's dismal away record this season, which has seen them pick up just two points from nine games, there will be a sold-out 3,000-plus travelling Green Army at Bristol City.

Rooney said: "I think the fans have been great and I get their frustration after the previous game but we are coming into a south-west derby, if you like, and there is no better game to have to show your reaction to the previous game. The fans will be there behind the players, I have no doubt about that, and it's on us to put a performance in."

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