\n<\/p>\n
Chelsea have reached a deal with Aston Villa to sign England international Morgan Rogers.<\/p>\n
Arsenal were considered favourites to sign him before Chelsea swooped, agreeing to pay a British record \u00a3117 million fee for Rogers. The 23-year-old is expected to undergo a medical on Monday.<\/p>\n
Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali negotiated the deal directly with Villa counterpart Nassef Sawiris, according to the Telegraph.<\/p>\n
Manager Xabi Alonso also played a role, while his close relationship with Cole Palmer was another factor in his decision to join Chelsea.<\/p>\n
Middlesbrough are set to bank approximately \u00a320m after negotiating a sell-on clause when Rogers joined Villa in February 2024.<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s interest in Rogers predate this summer, having made him a top target last summer after signing Jamie Gittens from Borussia Dortmund.<\/p>\n
However, they signed Alejandro Garnacho from Manchester United.<\/p>\n
Garnacho and Gittens struggled last season, prompting Chelsea to reignite their interest in the midfielder.<\/p>\n
There were doubts over whether Chelsea could afford Rogers, and whether he would be open to joining them after they failed to qualify for the Champions League.<\/p>\n
His signing is a major coup for the club and sends a strong statement to their fans about their ambition.<\/p>\n
Rogers enjoyed a brilliant campaign last season, helping Villa win the Europa League and secure Champions League qualification.<\/p>\n
The West Bromwich academy graduate was also brilliant in the 2024\/25 season, winning the Premier League Young Player of the Season award.<\/p>\n
He has made 125 appearances across all competitions for the Villans, bagging 31 goals and 29 assists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea have reached a deal with Aston Villa to sign England international Morgan Rogers. Arsenal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}