Wayne Rooney up for the fight after Plymouth Argyle's bad run of results

Wayne Rooney has spoken of his desire to get Plymouth Argyle out of a bad run of Championship results which has seen them drop to one position off the bottom of the table.

Rooney admitted the Pilgrims, who have won only one of their last 10 games, are going through a tough period but he has the belief they can turn that around. Inevitably, the pressure is increasing all the time on the 39-year-old, with the national media taking a close interest given the high profile of the England legend, but he is up for the fight.

It will certainly not get any easier for Argyle on Saturday when they are away to leaders Sheffield United, whose former Pilgrims' goalkeeper Michael Cooper has not conceded a goal in eight consecutive victories for the Blades at Bramall Lane.

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Rooney said: "It's not easy to enjoy it when you are losing, that's simple," and when asked what kept him going through the difficult times, he added: "The desire to get out it.

"Whatever you are doing, whatever sport you are in, you go through patches and we are going through one which is tough, no denying that, but you want to show some fight and desire to get out of it, and I think we can.

"Of course, I have said this before, injuries don't help, to any team in this league. When you lose players that doesn't help but that's not an excuse, I still expect us to be picking up results, and expect us to get out of it.

"We are looking at arguably the best team in the world over the last few years at Man City going through exactly the same. So when you lose some players and confidence is a little bit down it can be tough but we need to find ways to get out of it.

"Of course, we have got a difficult game Saturday but if we get a positive result what a platform that gives us moving forward into the Christmas period. It's tough but we are there, we are fighting and we are doing everything we can to try to turn it around."

Argyle will go to Sheffield United after losing 2-1 to Swansea City at Home Park on Tuesday and they are just one point above bottom-of-the-table Hull City, who conceded a late equaliser in a 1-1 draw with Watford last night (Wednesday)

Rooney said: "You have to keep working. There has to be a level of honesty from everyone when you are going through a period like this, and that has been the case. I actually thought the performance was a lot better on Tuesday than it has been over the last few weeks. It was a lack of concentration or communication on stopping crosses which happened twice and we concede two goals.

"That's a responsibility on individuals, a responsibility on players covering their team-mates, and these are all discussions we are having to try to improve that and make it better, and stop conceding the goals we are conceding because we are killing ourselves."

On how he deals with the pressure of his Argyle role during such challenging times, Rooney said: "It's part of the job, it's as simple as that. There's always noise, whether you are winning, losing, drawing, whatever situation you are in.

"For me, I have honest conversations with players, I have honest conversations with the board and the owners, and we know exactly where we are at.

"We have got a belief we can really come through this. Yes, we have been unfortunate with injuries, of course we have, but it's our job now to make sure we improve players and try to get them to the level which we need to get us out of this. There is pressure you have to deal with but that's part of the fun of being in a job. If that pressure is not there then what's the point?"

Argyle owner and chairman Simon Hallett made supportive comments about Rooney when he spoke at a Plymouth Argyle Cornish Supporters' Association fans' forum at the start of last week, since when the vastly experienced Mike Phelan has been brought in as assistant head coach after the departure of Pete Shuttleworth by mutual consent.

Rooney said: "There is always honest conversations between myself, Neil (Dewsnip, director of football), Andrew (Parkinson, chief executive officer, Simon - whoever that may be - about how can we improve, and from a recruitment point of view what players can we bring in to help, what players do we need, what players do we need to get out.

"These are all conversations which are going on, so come January we are in the best possible position we can be to get what we need.

"Getting the injured players back will be like new signings for us but we all know, we are under no illusion, we need to improve the squad, that's there for everyone to see. We are working extremely hard to put ourselves in the best position to do that as early as possible."

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