People are now getting behind the appointment of Rooney

AFTER A MIXED REACTION, HALLETT FEELS FANS ARE NOW MORE POSITIVE ON NEW BOSS

- CHRIS ERRINGTON

SIMON Hallett believes Plymouth Argyle’s Green Army are getting behind the high-profile appointment of Wayne Rooney as head coach after a largely negative initial reaction to it.

Argyle’s majority owner and chairman has put that down to the fact that he and the Championship club have explained their reasoning to hire the 38-year-old, who is Manchester United’s record goalscorer and was capped 120 times by England. Hallett thought Rooney was a good ‘cultural fit’ for the Pilgrims and described him as “an approachable, down-to-earth, humble young man.”

A lot of the criticism about the appointment of Rooney came as a result of his unsuccessful 15-game, threemonth stint at Birmingham City last season, but Argyle supporters now seem more open-minded to the idea of him taking charge at Home Park.

Hallett told Herald Sport: “I certainly get the sense people are getting behind it. I think the reason is we have explained what the thinking was.

“I think the immediate reaction was ‘Here’s a guy who failed in his last appointment, they are just reaching out and grabbing a celebrity’, and that was anything but the truth.

“Wayne’s celebrity status, if anything, was a negative. What was positive about him is his ability to relate to people - to players, to staff, to sponsors, and so on. I think the cultural fit with Wayne was the closest of all the candidates.”

The final interviews of three candidates - a fourth dropped out the previous evening - were carried out by Hallett, chief executive officer Andrew Parkinson, director of football Neil Dewsnip and, by video link, United Statesbased Nick Giannotti, a club director and the sole managing member of Argyle Green. Head of finance David Ray and club secretary Zac Newton were also in attendance.