Morgan Rogers once described himself, in his own words, as \u201ca bit of a geek for football knowledge.\u201d If Chelsea\u2019s reported move for the Aston Villa playmaker happens, that detail may become part of a much bigger conversation.<\/p>\n
At the reported fee of $157.3 million (\u00a3117 million), Rogers would become the most expensive player in Chelsea history and the most costly British player ever signed by any club. But before the numbers on the contract, there is a more familiar question to consider: which shirt number would he take?<\/p>\n
Rogers has already shown he can attach meaning to a squad number. During a teenage loan spell with Lincoln City in League One, he was left with limited options and chose No. 27 after deciding, \u201cI was looking at the numbers and thought none of these.\u201d He later explained that it was \u201cthe only number that looked remotely O.K. at the time.\u201d The choice mattered because of the 7, a digit he wanted after growing up idolizing Cristiano Ronaldo.<\/p>\n
That number stayed with him. \u201cI wasn\u2019t necessarily sold on it but because then I had a good loan, it kinda stuck with me,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s always the number I\u2019d pick if I go to a club.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Chelsea, though, No. 27 already belongs to Malo Gusto. No. 7 is also unavailable because it is held by Pedro Neto. The most obvious opening appears to be No. 17, now vacated by Manchester United-bound Andrey Santos, while No. 37 remains another possible option.<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s current list of unused or recently assigned numbers also includes 2, 3, 13, 16, 18, 22 and 26. There have also been whispers of a possible move for Gusto, which would reopen the No. 27 route for Rogers. Yet Chelsea\u2019s reported valuation of $100.8 million (\u00a375 million) for a backup right back makes that scenario difficult to imagine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea\u2019s move for Morgan Rogers could raise a simple question: which shirt number would he take?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,190],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aston-villa","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17719","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=17719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}