After making an impressive impact last season after arriving in January, Aston Villa ace Morgan Rogers is primed to become a leading influence in Unai Emery’s side in the upcoming campaign.
Our lengthy pursuit of the 21-year-old at the start of the year suggested that Emery and our recruitment team had seen something in Rogers that made them confident that he would be an important addition and great fit for our squad.
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That analysis and assessment already appears to be spot on, with Rogers scoring three goals and providing an assist in 16 appearances last season, but it was his ability to swiftly adapt and become a key cog in our structure and style of play that was the most impressive aspect of his first few months at the club.
After recovering from an injury over the summer and working hard on his fitness to be ready for pre-season, the talented youngster has picked up from where he left off as he has been the stand-out performer in our pre-season schedule thus far.
Admittedly, games against Walsall and Spartak Trnava in July aren’t going to be the primary samples to judge him. In order to truly prove himself of being capable of taking that next step to become a leading figure in this Villa side, he’ll have to continue to deliver when faced with tougher challenges on a consistent basis, along with the rest of his teammates.
That said, there are aspects and nuances of his game that we’re seeing again so far this summer that are positive signs we can take away about him as a player, in terms of his intelligence and natural ability to be impactful.
Rogers has looked very sharp and increasingly confident in our first two outings, and aside from his three goals in just 90 minutes on the pitch, he is so clever with his movement off the ball to find space and he constantly wants the ball in those pockets between the lines to have an influence on our play.
As we can see in the image below, this was in the lead up to his goal against Spartak Trnava on Saturday, and he receives the ball in space near the halfway line which in turn gives him time to turn and attack the opposition’s backline immediately.
While he was slightly fortunate in terms of Kadan Young’s effort rebounding into his path for him to apply the finish, it was another example of being in the right place at the right time, but that isn’t all down to luck, as Rogers has an uncanny instinct and great positional awareness to know where to drift to make his mark.
Similarly for our third goal which was scored by Cameron Archer, the image below again shows Rogers finding space between the lines and exploiting a gap between the defenders to receive the ball in a dangerous area where he can turn and run at the backline in a swift manner to keep our attack moving at pace.
Archer shows good movement to get himself into a goalscoring position so he deserves credit too, but Rogers played a perfectly weighted pass into his path to register an assist.
Competition is fierce in that area of the Villa squad with Emiliano Buendia, Jacob Ramsey and Leon Bailey all pushing to start, while we have the likes of John McGinn and Youri Tielemans who can play in more advanced roles too.
In turn, Rogers will have to continuously battle and impress to establish himself as a fixture in this Villa XI. However, the level of confidence is growing, the effectiveness within Emery’s system is constantly evolving and improving, and so it looks as though he’s more than capable of having a big season to build on the development and progress he showed in the last campaign.