In the Carabao Cup first round at Home Park, Wayne Rooney‘s Plymouth Argyle team defeated Cheltenham Town 3-0, earning him his first victory as the team’s manager.
Ryan Hardie and Freddie Issaka both missed close range goals for Argyle, and five minutes before halftime, Ethon Archer struck the Plymouth post with a low drive.
An hour passed before Ben Waine’s tap-in from a yard after Adam Randell’s free-kick was deflected against the crossbar, breaking the stalemate.
From taking the lead, Argyle controlled as Mustapha Bundu and Morgan Whittaker squandered good opportunities, then Hardie doubled the advantage with a superb close-range goal from Ibrahim Cissoko’s left-wing cross.
Bundu completed the win with an excellent controlled finish into the bottom corner from the edge of the box.
Having been thrashed 4-0 at Sheffield Wednesday in his first game in charge on Sunday, Rooney rang the changes as just young midfielder Darko Gyabi and goalkeeper Conor Hazard remained, with Michael Cooper set to join Sheffield United as their new stopper.
Argyle could have been ahead inside the first 10 minutes as Issaka went close, before Hardie had a fierce shot beaten away by Joe Day following a long ball from Hungarian debutant Kornel Skucs.
Argyle did have the ball in the net soon after, but Waine’s 13th-minute effort was ruled out after Callum Wright was offside in the build-up.
Despite only having a third of the possession Cheltenham had their chances – Harrison Sohna forced a great save from Hazard 10 minutes from the break while Archer’s low effort from the corner of the 18-yard box came back off the post and Hazard’s back before going out for a corner.
Argyle should have been ahead at the break – impressive teenage winger Issaka was a constant threat down the right and his teasing cross was almost converted by Wright while Bali Mumba blasted into the side netting from eight yards out as the half drew to a close.
Jordan Thomas flashed an early second-half effort wide for Cheltenham before Waine broke the deadlock from a yard into an empty net after a wonderful swerving free-kick that Day did well to get a hand to.
Rooney brought on some of his first-choice attackers in Whittaker, Bundu and Cissoko and the League Two side struggled to live with them – all three having good efforts with Whittaker and Bundu guilty of bad misses at the far post.
But they soon made amends as the excellent Cissoko first set up Hardie to score before Mumba controlled the Dutchman’s ball into the six-yard box and fed it back to Bundu who coolly finished.
Cheltenham almost got a consolation when Joel Colwill’s effort from the edge of the box was tipped over by Hazard three minutes from the end of normal time.
But having lost heavily on Sunday, Rooney will be relieved with a morale-boosting first win in front of a decent home crowd.
Plymouth Argyle head coach Wayne Rooney told BBC Sport:
“I thought we were good – I thought first half we had to be a little bit more patient with the ball in our positions because I thought we were rushing it a bit at times and a bit sloppy on occasions which could cost us if we don’t get it out of our game.
“But second half we came out with much more control, moved the ball a lot quicker, more of a threat going forward and obviously got the well-deserved win I felt.
“I’m really pleased with the performance, with the win, through to the next round and I saw a lot of things I wanted to see tonight which I didn’t see on Sunday.
“So I think it’s important that we try and put Sunday out of our minds and the best way to do that is to win and thankfully we got the victory.”
Cheltenham Town manager Michael Flynn told BBC Radio Gloucestershire:
“I thought for 65 minutes, we did really well until they scored – our heads seemed to drop a little bit.
“The frustrating thing about that is Joe has made one of the best saves I’ve seen in a long, long time and we switch off and allow them to have a tap in.
“We’re a team learning, we’ve got a lot of players who haven’t got any real experience, but there were some positive moments this evening.”