How Morgan Rogers became the unicorn forward to complete Chelsea’s terrifying attack | OneFootball

Aston Villa v Arsenal, August 2024. Morgan Rogers receives a pass facing his own goal and Declan Rice is immediately on his back. The Villa midfielder takes the ball with the outside of his right foot and swivels into space, leaving Rice behind. The space is quickly filled by Arsenal’s midfield enforcer Thomas Partey, but Rogers knocks it past Partey and races around his back to regather the ball, leaving the Ghanaian splayed on the grass. Their tussle at least buys Rice time to catch up, but as he lunges in to make the tackle, Rogers takes a clever touch and Rice concedes a clumsy foul.

Arsenal would go on to win but it was an afternoon full of moments like that one in which Rogers tormented his opponents. After the game, Mikel Arteta marvelled at his performance. On Sky Sports, Jamie Redknapp compared Rogers to “Jonah Lomu in his prime”, and when you saw the trail of Arsenal bodies left on the floor, you understood exactly what he meant.

The Lomu comparison touched on what makes Rogers rare, even unique, in world football, and perhaps helps to explain why Chelsea were prepared to spend £117m to sign him this summer. Rogers is a blend of football genres, a walking oxymoron, powerful and graceful, hardy and agile, heavy and light all at once, like some contorted beast with the shoulders of a buffalo and the feet of a squirrel on an errand.

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Morgan Rogers has made an impressive start to life at Chelsea (Getty)

There are other robust ball-carriers at the top of the game: Antoine Semenyo and Jude Bellingham come to mind; Ryan Gravenberch, Manu Kone and Rice all perform similar functions from deep. But none have Rogers’ package of strength and balance, quick feet and rapid acceleration, that creative eye and subtle movement between the lines. In an increasingly homogenized world of coaching and industrialised talent production, Rogers is something of a unicorn forward.

One of the quandaries with Rogers and his complete profile is exactly how best to use him. Is he a pacey winger or a central creator? Does he thrive in space or make space himself? The manager who gave him his league debut at Lincoln City, Michael Appleton, quickly recognised Rogers’ appetite for physical confrontation and played on that trait.

“He actually likes the contact,” Appleton told Sky Sports. “He enjoys people being really tight to him and he can then use his physical frame to roll them on the inside or the outside. Because I knew Morgan liked contact, I knew I could play him inside as a 10. It is one thing being nippy with a slight frame and going past people, but when you are 6ft 2in and you can do that…”

Rogers told the Guardian that he likes to be in the centre of the pitch surrounded by defenders. “The way I play and where I want to play on the pitch, there is going to be contact and traffic around me, so to be able to feel pressure and turn away from it is something I pride myself on.”

What is clear from the opening weeks of the season is just how well Rogers’ skillset fits into Xabi Alonso’s new Chelsea team. He already has four assists and two goals in four-and-a-half games and tops Chelsea’s charts for key passes and big chances created. If Joao Pedro is the goalscoring focal point and Cole Palmer is the player for moments of magic, then Rogers is quickly becoming the creative heartbeat of the side, the player every clever move goes through, laying the table for his teammates to eat.

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Rogers is close friends with his former Manchester City teammate Cole Palmer (Reuters)

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Morgan Rogers is enjoying life at Chelsea (John Walton/PA)

It helps that he shares chemistry with his close friend Palmer. That was illustrated in Wednesday’s 6-3 win over Leeds, first on the pitch and later in a behind-the-scenes clip which showed Rogers bemoaning Palmer’s man-of-the-match award as “criminal” after a game in which Rogers racked up assists. It was the sort of joke you could only have with someone you truly know.

Their friendship goes back to their days in Manchester City’s academy, and before international camps with England Under-21s they would call ahead to request they room together. Rogers watched his friend bloom at Chelsea and was determined to make his own mark on the Premier League.

But it is also Alonso’s tactical setup which suits Rogers so well. Arsenal fans mocked Rogers last weekend with chants of “You should have signed for a big club”, a retort after Rogers declared he had signed for the biggest club in London. No doubt Rogers would have thrived at the Emirates too, but he would have been playing closer to the touchline: Christos Tzolis has buzzed inside at times this season but his starting position is wide. Riccardo Calafiori makes underlapping runs that fill the central space, Martin Odegaard and Rice drive forwards, Kai Havertz drops deep and it can get cluttered in there.

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Rogers is challenged by Costinha of Brighton at Stamford Bridge (Getty)

It is a different role at Stamford Bridge. As one of Chelsea’s two No 10s, Rogers has licence to find space. Alonso’s wing-backs tend to hold their width, leaving Rogers with room to move freely inside where he can go and find the contact he enjoys. He popped up everywhere against Leeds, often ghosting between a centre-half and full-back who didn’t notice until it was too late.

Hull City are the next team to face Chelsea’s front three, at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, and on first glance they should provide a stiff test as the only side in English football yet to concede a league goal. Yet the underlying numbers suggest a slightly different story, with Hull ranked 18th in the Premier League for expected clean sheets, having allowed chances worth a total of five expected goals. Goalkeeper Konstantinos Tzolakis has been immense.

Asked this week how they planned to stop Chelsea, Hull manager Sergej Jakirovic smiled. “Kick them,” he replied. His team might struggle to contain the barrage that’s coming. Chelsea have a little bit of everything in their attack. And that’s just Rogers.