The rush has begun to accelerate Wayne Rooney's return to a television studio. After his brief spell in charge of Plymouth Argyle came to its predictable end on Tuesday morning, he is being told he has blown his chance to manage and should give it up.
Maybe you're willing to listen. The final stages of his time at Home Park took on a fairly heavy-handed tone, complete with the usual off-stage noises about his social life and the challenges of being separated from his family, who live near Manchester.
I hope you don't listen. I hope someone gives him another chance in management, whatever the level, because someone with his experience, someone with his ability as a player, someone with his prestige in the game and someone with his generosity of spirit and empathy can enrich our game. .
Maybe I say that because I spent some time with him when he was in charge of Derby County and saw him working miracles at the club to keep them in the Championship during a season when they were beset by crippling financial problems. It's hard not to feel that a man like Rooney still has a lot to give.
If this happens, it will be further down the leagues. Or maybe it's somewhere abroad. That's the reality of management when you've struck out twice in your last two jobs. But he's not even 40 yet. He's still learning. Why shouldn't I go that route?
He has talent for work. His time at Pride Park proved that. That was as far from a silver spoon task as you could get and Rooney thrived on it. It could thrive again somewhere else.
Wayne Rooney has managerial talent despite his sacking from Plymouth
The work he did at Derby County in difficult circumstances shows he has what it takes to succeed.
But we shouldn't sugarcoat things: his time at Birmingham was an absolute disaster and his time at Plymouth wasn't much better.
Maybe being on Sky Sports or the BBC would scratch the itch when it comes to staying in the game. But maybe it wouldn't be like that. Football is all he has ever known and it seems the height of arrogance for people to tell him that he no longer has a place in it.
If you know anything about Rooney, you know he needs the game. If you have read anything about him, you will know that it was difficult for him to face the downturns of his career at Manchester United and he locked himself in a room in his house, drinking and not seeing the light.
He too will suffer now. Wealth does not protect from that kind of despair, as many still seem to think it should. The game is Rooney's soul and he has much more to give back.
Look, it's always a pleasure to visit Home Park. A lovely stadium with a great atmosphere and one of the best fan bases in the game, in a beautiful part of the country, and something that makes it feel like an independent football republic within our four main divisions.
But while they are a good club that often goes above and beyond, let's not pretend that Rooney was handed the keys to the kingdom when he was appointed Argyle manager in the summer.
Argyle are a proud club, but they narrowly escaped relegation from the Championship last season and this season, it was always going to be a struggle to keep them that way, whether it was one of England's best former players in charge or anyone else.
Rooney was unsuccessful at Plymouth and it was no surprise when Argyle announced they had parted ways with him on Tuesday morning with the club entrenched at the bottom of the table and four points from safety.
But while some chose to sum up his time in charge with language that suggested he had brought the apocalypse with him to the West Country, it is not as if he brought down Manchester United like Ruben Amorim is doing.
I admire him for taking on difficult jobs and not falling for the expert's easy option.
He needs football, it is his soul, and he still has a lot to give back to it.
Plymouth is last in the championship, but only survived on the final day of 2023-24.
Rooney can still find success despite another managerial disaster, writes Oliver Holt
He didn't have the experience or management know-how to create the kind of spark that a habitual underdog like Plymouth needs to thrive, the kind of spark that Neil Warnock lit with the Green Army long ago, the kind of spark that Ryan Lowe and Steven Schumacher fanned the flames more recently.
But it seems to be a particularly English phenomenon to greet the failure of some of our best players to succeed in management with sheer glee and proclaim that, because of his failure at Plymouth, Rooney should abandon all hope of ever becoming boss again. .
Rooney has managed management the hard way. He has been fed on scraps since he retired as a player. And even if he should be forgotten now, the reality is that he did an extraordinary job in desperately difficult circumstances when he was in his first role as Derby County boss.
Derby were crippled by financial problems when Rooney was there but, with the help of talented manager Liam Rosenior, he kept them afloat in the Championship for longer than many others could have.
His reign at Birmingham City was practically an unmitigated disaster. Many managers have one of those spells on their resume. His stay there was born on a bad note when the club sacked a popular manager, John Eustace, when the club was flying. Rooney was never able to overcome that obstacle and the club's fortunes soared.
There's no point in sugarcoating that. It also makes no sense to say that because it didn't work there or in Plymouth, it can never work for him anywhere else again.
I admire Rooney for trying. I admire him for not taking the easy option and sitting in a warm studio. I admire him for putting himself out there, in jobs where he knows the odds are against him, in jobs where he knows his detractors will come after him and try to prove himself.
He doesn't need the money but he does need the game. I hope you don't turn your back on him.