'DOWN-TO-EARTH WAYNE IS ONLY GOING TO HELP US GET BETTER'

WHEN Adam Randell was growing up, Wayne Rooney was England’s talisman, Manchester United’s record goalscorer and a global icon. Now?

- Chris Dunlavy

“He’s just the manager,” says Plymouth Argyle’s homegrown midfielder. “As weird as it sounds, he’s just someone I work for and who tells me what to do.

“I’m 24 so I obviously grew up watching him play for United in the Premier League and watching clips and highlights on YouTube. It was very surreal watching him walk through the door on that first day.

“But that ‘Wow, it’s Wayne Rooney’ thing disappeared really quickly. He managed to make himself very approachable and create a friendly atmosphere. Within literally a couple of days it was just normal to have a chat with him.

“Every now and again, you do sort of check yourself. He’ll be showing you something in training and it’s ‘Oh, Scholesy used to do this or Ronaldo did this’ and I’m thinking, ‘Jeez, all right mate!’.

“But, yeah, other than the occasional name drops and the flashes you see when he joins in, you completely forget who he is, just based on how he is around the place.

“He’s very down to earth. He loves to get involved in training. He’s always showing us stuff and giving examples of what we should be doing, but not in an egotistical way.

“He’s here to help. We’re here to listen. That’s what we expect from him and that’s what he expects from us. It’s just that mutual respect and that level of communication where we can talk to him if we need to and likewise he can speak to us in the same manner.

“I’ve learned loads from him being here and from picking up pieces in training, and from the other staff that have come in as well. I feel like I’ve come on leaps and bounds even within a short amount of time, and I feel like I can only get better the more I work with him.”