Chelsea host Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, a fixture that will carry a particular resonance for Morgan Rogers. Three years before he became Chelsea’s £117m club-record signing, the forward watched his value fall to just £1m and questioned whether he would make it at the top level at all.
Bournemouth were the first of two underwhelming Championship loan spells for Rogers, the second coming at Blackpool, both taken while he was a Manchester City player. It was a significant setback for someone who had been a regular England youth international and one of West Bromwich Albion’s brightest academy prospects, and who found the step from academy football into the men’s game anything but seamless.
In a recent interview with Chelsea’s club channel, Rogers said the period taught him how to take knocks. Asked what his rise through the EFL had taught him, he replied: “Everything.” After a long pause, he added: “I needed that next challenge, to be taken out of my comfort zone and find the player I was going to be in professional football. I think the academy player I was, if you watch me then, is not the same player I am now. I am a completely different player. I had to learn that on loan.”
The first of those loans came at Lincoln City in League One, where Michael Appleton made it his mission to bring him to Sincil Bank. Appleton had worked in West Brom’s academy and knew Rogers was one of the most highly rated prospects there. He remembers a big personality who, despite arriving as an 18-year-old, was willing to speak up in team meetings. Rogers scored six goals and provided two assists in 28 appearances after joining shortly after lockdown, lining up in an attack alongside now-Everton forward Brennan Johnson, and helped Lincoln reach the play-off final, which they lost to Blackpool.
One moment in particular sticks with Appleton. “We played Portsmouth away and they had three or four absolute units in the team,” he told BBC Sport. “We were setting up for set-pieces and almost running out of players to pick up these giants. Without any hesitation whatsoever, Morgan said: ‘Make me a marker. I’ll head the ball out of our box.’ This was a teenager on his first loan.”
Bournemouth, though, proved a harder environment. Rogers started only three matches and scored once under then-manager Scott Parker, whose side secured promotion back to the Premier League. Former scout Des Taylor, who brought him in, described him as a “slow burner”. “You could see his ability having scouted him at Lincoln, but it wasn’t clear what he would become,” Taylor said. “Unfortunately, we signed him late in the window. We saw him as a number 10, but Parker was not really playing with a number 10. I don’t think it was a great time for him because he wasn’t getting game time and, when he did, it wasn’t in the position he wanted. He was a victim of the transition. It was no fault of Scott’s, but it didn’t work out.”
Former Bournemouth team-mate Steve Cook believes the club had the chance to make the move permanent, reportedly for £9m, but that it did not work out. “He didn’t let it stop him,” Cook said. “First and foremost, he was a really good lad. He was energetic away from the football pitch and I think that character has helped take him to where he is now.”
Rogers’ Bournemouth loan was cut short and he returned to academy football, before an injury delayed his next move to Blackpool until the following January. The switch reunited him with Appleton in the Championship, but the manager was sacked after only two weeks and replaced by Mick McCarthy. Rogers made 20 appearances, as a starter and a substitute, scoring once as Blackpool were relegated to League One after appointing a third manager in April.
“Unfortunately, he played one game against Watford and then I got sacked. That wasn’t great for either of us,” Appleton said. “He’d been patient, I’d been patient while he recovered from his summer injury, we’d finally reconnected and then I was out of the building. I don’t think he played as much as he would have liked after that, but he dealt with it professionally and in the right way.”
Rogers describes that spell as difficult, and tried not to compare himself with former team-mates who overtook him and got opportunities first. He even doubted whether he would make it, crediting family and friends with keeping him grounded. His best friend in football, Cole Palmer, joined Chelsea for £42.5m having established himself at Manchester City without needing a loan move, while Rogers joined Middlesbrough for just £1m.
A run of five goals and three assists during Middlesbrough’s six-game surge to the Carabao Cup semi-finals alerted Aston Villa, where several of Rogers’ former West Brom coaches were working in senior academy roles, and prompted an initial £8m move in the winter window. By then Palmer had already broken into the England squad through regular goals and assists for Chelsea.
Appleton’s summary of the journey is simple. “Morgan is a great example that careers aren’t always a straight line,” he said — a point the Bournemouth fixture will quietly underline on Saturday.