Morgan Rogers ‘joined the wrong club’ in Chelsea over ‘tailor-made’ Liverpool | OneFootball

Chelsea are ‘the wrong club’ for Morgan Rogers. Arsenal weren’t his best fit either; Liverpool and Andoni Iraola could have ‘unleashed’ him.

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My name’s Jeff

Can’t wait for the mental gymnastics as Liverpool fans try and defend being owned by Jeff f**king Bezos. Will (I’m sure it will mean more) Wymant

Rogers to Liverpool would have been better

Morgan Rogers is an excellent footballer. But £117 million should buy more than excellence. It should buy a player perfectly suited to your manager.

Rogers’ greatest weapon is space. Give him room to turn, accelerate and attack defenders and he can be devastating. Last season he made 223 progressive carries, with 30 ending in shots and another 16 creating chances.

The problem is that Xabi Alonso’s best football at Bayer Leverkusen was based around control. His title-winning side dominated possession, patiently pushed opponents backwards and regularly attacked compact defensive blocks.

That demands players who excel in tight spaces.

Rogers’ numbers suggest something different. His dribble completion was just 34.2% last season, while his 73.4% pass completion under pressure ranked 143rd among 161 qualifying Premier League midfielders and forwards.

Chelsea have therefore spent £117m on a player whose greatest strength requires space – and appointed a manager whose football may frequently remove it.

Andoni Iraola’s Bournemouth were almost the tactical opposite. They pressed ferociously, forced mistakes high up the pitch and attacked quickly once possession was won. Bournemouth led the Premier League in PPDA, dangerous losses forced, ball recoveries and goals resulting from high turnovers.

Iraola has even spoken previously about preferring “chaos over organisation.”

That sounds tailor-made for Rogers.

Instead of repeatedly receiving the ball against an established low block, Rogers could receive possession immediately after Liverpool force a turnover, with defenders out of position and space suddenly appearing ahead of him.

And Rogers loves space.

He made 258 runs in behind last season and 160 off-ball runs ending inside the penalty area. Add his powerful carrying and you have exactly the type of attacker who could flourish in Iraola’s fast, vertical football.

There is even an interesting comparison already at Liverpool. Cody Gakpo produced 41 carries ending in shots last season; Rogers managed 30. Combining shots and chances created after carries, Gakpo recorded 57 and Rogers 46.

Liverpool already possess evidence that this type of direct ball-carrier can thrive in their attacking environment.

Rogers also brings goals. Since his Premier League debut he has scored 21 non-penalty goals from just 14.7 expected goals, an impressive +6.3 overperformance.

None of this means Rogers will fail at Chelsea. He’s 23, hugely talented and could adapt. But £117 million changes the argument. Chelsea may have paid a British-record fee for a player Alonso needs to refine.

Under Iraola, Liverpool could simply have unleashed him.

Morgan Rogers may not be the wrong player. He may just have joined the wrong club.

Sincerely, Esco Pablabar IV

Rogers didn’t choose Chelsea, he rejected certainty

The reaction to Morgan Rogers choosing Chelsea over Arsenal has fascinated me.

Apparently it tells us Chelsea are back. Or Arsenal have blown another big transfer. Or Rogers has made the worst decision of his career.

Football really does hate uncertainty.

Arsenal were the sensible choice. The champions. Stable. A squad everyone agrees is one or two players away. Chelsea were…not that. No European football. A new manager who hasn’t coached a game for them yet. Another expensive rebuild. Plenty of reasons to say, “I’ll wait.”

Morgan Rogers didn’t.

That doesn’t automatically make Chelsea the better club. Nor does it make Rogers wrong. It just means the person with the most information about Morgan Rogers’ career reached a different conclusion from thousands of us watching from the outside.

That’s the bit I can’t get my head around.

Whenever a player rejects the club we think he should join, our first instinct is to explain why he’s mistaken. Money. Agents. Ego. Anything except the possibility that footballers might value different things from supporters. Maybe Xabi Alonso’s plans genuinely appealed more than Mikel Arteta’s. Maybe Cole Palmer was constantly ringing his phone. Maybe being THE signing felt better than being A signing.

The irony is that my Arsenal friends spent weeks telling me Rogers was the perfect Arteta player. Now some of those same people seem convinced he lacks ambition because he didn’t choose Arteta. Both things can’t be true.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey reminded me that the interesting part of any journey is the choice to leave home in the first place (my only takeaway after leaving the cinema, tbh).  Consider what it would have been like if Gerrard had left the comfort of home during the peak of his career.

Football supporters skip straight to the ending. If Chelsea struggle, Rogers was foolish. If Chelsea succeed, he always knew what he was doing. Either way, we’ll pretend the decision was obvious all along.

It never is. Gaptoothfreak, Man. Utd., New York (Yes, it was as disappointing as The Dark Knight Rises)

The incredible English coverage of Harry Kane

Catching up on a few days of mailboxes today, and one thing jumps out to me so much, that I simply had to respond.

As an Irish man, I wouldn’t usually comment on the Engilsh national team stuff… but as a Spurs fan and Harry Kane admirer, I can’t ignore the simply maddening coverage of Harry Kane by mailboxes, and across the English media since the end of the World Cup.

Incredible.

How simply, can we go here… Harry Kane is England’s best player. Has been for years.

At the time of writing, he is, quite rightly, the favourite for the Ballon D’Or. 70 goals in 58 games for club and country this year will do that. He is one of maybe 2 (with Bellingham) English players who *any* other country would want in their team.

Spain, world champions, would bite your hand off for Harry Kane. Brazil, Portugal? They’d beg. Even France, with their embarrassment of riches up front, would love him. They’d make it work.

And yet in England, the narrative is: “We’ll win nothing with that lump up front. He’s holding us back. When has he ever actually been good for us?”. An amazing reaction, when every other nation thinks he’s one of the only reasons you’re even competing at that top tier.

The swing of opinion is hilarious. After his goal in the group stages and his heroics v DR Congo, I was reading: “Is Kane the greatest English player of all time?” and after a semi final defeat to Arg, it’s a question of “How quickly can we get rid of this washed up, overrated, goalhanger.”

It’s a great example of the fine margins in Sport. England were genuinely within inches of success in this World Cup. Sure, Kane, among others, didn’t look great against Arg, but if Tuchel hadn’t completely folded, and England maintained some semblance of football for the last 25 mins, they could’ve seen out that game. They were in a wonderful position to get to their first final since 66. In a final against Spain? Who knows! Although I’d have backed England to play more football against Spain than Argentina did!

In that case, we’d be talking about ‘Sir Harry Kane’, all time great. Such tiny margins, but such a wild difference of opinions as a result!

Other countries would build around Kane. Look at Argentina, they’ve got the greatest player ever, but he’s 7 years older than Kane and far less fit and mobile right now. But Argentina build a system to help him succeed, and they fight for him, not vilify him… and it almost worked!

England are lucky to have Kane. Enjoy him while you can, because I’m not sure the Liam Delap era will be as much fun. Andy, Spurs, Eire

City will never be punished

Picking up on yesterday’s mail regarding City’s charges and the delay in the outcome, I tend to think that there will never be a conclusion. Basically, the EPL can’t handle City as has been proved when City took them to a tribunal before and refused to back down straining the EPL’s finances to a degree.

The reason certain other clubs were penalised relatively quickly was because of the number of alleged charges. Where City appear to have been clever here is by supposedly breaking a large number of rules resulting in a lot of alleged charges (it’s about 130 now I think) so if they are found guilty of breaking these rules and hence the charges then they will probably appeal against the decisions individually and take the EPL to the cleaners as it could result in who has the most money and with a not so educated guess I would say that wouldn’t be the EPL so they would probably have to back down. Just a thought. Chris, Croydon 

BBC v ITV is a nonsense (says man in Canada)

OK, you have noticed that I now live in Canada (Montreal specifically) but I only moved here 6 years ago, from Liverpool.

The BBC v ITV bullshit was alive and well (will not really well, but sickly bullshit) then, as it appears to be now.

I still maintain this is a debate being held only in the media, in previous times for lack of anything else to fill pages and now for content and clicks! Does anyone outside of the media really give a shit?

I’d be genuinely interested to hear if any other, UK based readers of this fine page care about the BBC v ITV ‘debate’ at all! A, LFC, Montreal.

Saint Jurgen

“It is my mission to make the national team squad a better team and hope the pool for me to choose from will be bigger, but it is not something I am doing against you, I am doing it for you. It is an honour,”

Oh thank you Jurgen! The German nation are truly blessed that you are putting yourself out for them.

“I will be remunerated very graciously and if tomorrow Jurgen Klopp is s***, I will be gone. But if the DFB says let us discontinue the job, then that’s it. And if you behave badly and don’t leave my family in peace, I’ll be gone. I’ll just turn away. I know there are other countries where national team head coaches are treated even worse. I love this job but I am also ready to call it quits if needs be.”

Yes Jurgen, you are special and different, so naturally the world will bend to your will because you said so.

I get that his was a virulent and full on mind & body infection case of Kopitis, but I didn’t realise it was that bad he’d still have it this long after leaving.

I’m all for the gutter press not being permac**ts, but clearly it ain’t happening just because Saint Jurgen said so – they’ll probably just double down as a result of this outburst. Which begs the question, why even say it?