Chelsea are said to have edged into pole position for Morgan Rogers after a reported verbal agreement with Aston Villa over the England international.<\/p>\n
According to The Athletic, Villa have accepted a bid worth $157.3 million (\u00a3117 million), with personal terms on a six-year deal already being discussed. The move would represent a major shift in a transfer story that had, until recently, pointed most strongly toward Arsenal.<\/p>\n
Rogers had been the player most closely linked with the newly crowned Premier League champions, helped by the impression he made in a cameo role at this summer\u2019s World Cup. Even so, Chelsea have moved decisively, and the presence of manager Xabi Alonso is believed to have carried weight in the decision.<\/p>\n
That factor may matter even more given Chelsea\u2019s lack of European football next season. Alonso arrives with a reputation built both on the touchline and from his own career as a player, where he won major honours in the Premier League, La Liga and Bundesliga.<\/p>\n
The size of the fee alone underlines the scale of the deal. If completed, the transfer would make Rogers Chelsea\u2019s most expensive signing ever, ahead of the roughly $144 million (\u00a3107 million) spent on Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez in 2023. It would also place him at the top of the list as the most expensive British player in history.<\/p>\n
That record, however, may not last long. Elliot Anderson, Rogers\u2019s England teammate this summer, only took it earlier this summer when he joined Manchester City for $156 million (\u00a3116 million). Chelsea\u2019s pursuit of Rogers would therefore reset the market again, and do so almost immediately after Anderson\u2019s move.<\/p>\n
For now, the reported agreement places Chelsea firmly in front, with a deal of historic scale now in view.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea are reportedly closing in on Morgan Rogers after a Villa agreement and huge bid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[983],"class_list":["post-17713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","tag-agents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}