Wayne Rooney slams his 'sloppy' Plymouth players for not 'doing the basics right' in embarrassing 5-0 defeat to Cardiff

Rooney's side suffered a thrashing at the hands of Cardiff on their return to action after the international break. The Welsh side had only enjoyed one win so far this season in the Championship heading into the game but took home all three points with a handsome victory at the Cardiff City Stadium. It's an embarrassing result for Plymouth, who saw Ibrahim Cissoko sent off in the first half, and one that leaves the team just four points off the bottom of the table.

The result means that Plymouth are still yet to win away from home in the Championship this season and have managed just one goal on their travels. Rooney was forced to watch the game from the stands, as he served a touchline ban for his red card, and was obviously not happy with what he saw from his players.

He told reporters: "My reflections on the game are I thought we actually started okay. We had decent control early on and we should be one-nil up. Michael (Obafemi) had a great chance and then beyond that we got really sloppy. We have given the ball away a lot, we didn't win tackles, we weren't aggressive enough, we didn't do the basics right.

"In this league if you don't do that then you lose and you have very difficult days like today. Very disappointed. For me, I know that's not that group of players in there. I think what we have seen since the first game of the season is a real energy and aggression.

"We have lost games but we have been in them. We have had good chances to take something out of them, where today we were never really in it after they scored the first goal.

"Of course going to 10 men makes it a lot more difficult but I think even before that we were struggling to get any momentum and any patterns of play after the first goal. We weren't getting to the ball. It was a really disappointing day."

Plymouth will aim to get back on track on Tuesday in another away day at Millwall and then host Preston on Saturday.