How Aston Villa can replace Morgan Rogers and Leon Bailey this summer

Aston Villa have been taken on quite the ride with Unai Emery at the helm, but they are currently facing considerable adversity through the sale of Morgan Rogers, who will sign for Chelsea this summer.

Rogers, 23, has emerged as one of the finest attacking midfielders in the world over the past couple of seasons, but the Villa have overcome such setbacks before, having seem any number of changes in key attacking positions over the past several years.

In January 2024, Jhon Duran left Villa Park and joined Al-Nassr in a £71m move. There ended his prolific start to life on the major stage, but Emery responded confidently by signing Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford on loan, the dual arrival having “worked out so well” for the club, according to former Manchester City defender Nedem Onuoha.

Replacing Rogers will be a more difficult endevaour, exacerbated by expected sale of Leon Bailey. It’s a hurdle that Emery will be confident of scaling, though.

How Aston Villa could replace Bailey and Rogers

Chelsea will sign Rogers this summer after a £117m fee was agreed with Aston Villa. This eclipses the one-time sale of Jack Grealish to Manchester City, with Rogers slated to be the second-most-expensive player in Premier League history.

He is an absolute phenomenon, so powerful and effective when surging into the box. He can score and he can create, equally as effective down the wing as he is in a more conventional No. 10 berth.

Johan Manzambi, 20, has already been signed from Freiburg for around £50m, and if his performances for Switzerland at the World Cup are anything to go by, he will add a physical attacking edge to Villa’s set-up, but it might not be enough given that the versatile Bailey is also on the move.

Bailey has been a crafty and persistent winger for Aston Villa over the years, and when he revived his career at the club over the latter stages of last year after returning from a loan spell with Roma, he proved a range of doubters wrong.

The Lions have worked hard to reinforce their midfield following Youri Tielemans’ sale and the ACL injury sustained by Amadou Onana, but with Champions League football on the horizon, they need more forwards.

£50m star could sign to replace Rogers

Aston Villa are losing a rare and influential cog in Rogers, but he’s not irreplaceable. When Grealish was sold to City, Villa went from strength to strength, and the same logic could be applied here, should the right players be welcomed.

According to TEAMtalk, Aston Villa have entered talks with Chelsea over a potential summer deal for Alejandro Garnacho, who is expected to leave Stamford Bridge in search of more first-team minutes. Villa is a destination that appears to him, with the winger noted as being open to heading to the Midlands side.

Garnacho only joined the Blues from Manchester United one year ago in a £40m deal, but he did not enjoy the strongest of seasons in the capital, and Xabi Alonso appears to have deemed him surplus to requirements.

Still, Chelsea know how to play hardball in the transfer market, and have actually lifted Garnacho’s transfer value to £50m. Garnacho, crucially, is open to a move to the Midlands, where he could take on a focal role and finally realise the “world-class” potential that Erik ten Hag said was within his grasp in 2024.

Garnacho is a protean attacking profile, tenacious and endowed with the X-factor that allows him to do spectacular things on the ball. His bicycle kick for Man United against Everton is firmly cemented as one of the Premier League’s greatest goals.

The 22-year-old only scored eight goals for Chelsea last season, one coming in the Premier League, but this is retroregression, a collapse from the standards set over the previous few years at Old Trafford, showing quality and a hunger to become one of the best.

Even at a low ebb last year, Garnacho still won 45% of his ground duels. Rogers won only 36%, so there’s a combativeness that Emery could draw from Garnacho and establish him as a Premier League superstar.

In this, he could be the perfect Rogers replacement, electric-paced and unpredictable. Hailed as a “special player” by Bruno Fernandes in the past, Emery could provide for the Argentine a comfortable environment to bounce right back – as he did with former Man United teammate Rashford a few years ago, setting the resurgent Three Lion on his way.

Garnacho will, for his part, need to kick on and prove that his dip in form is circumstantial, not corroboration from which detractors can point toward his failed poential and inability to bring it all together and sustain it.

NSWE need to replace Rogers and continue to strengthen elsewhere. Given that Garnacho shares with Rogers the athletic and physical markers that has formed the bedrock of his success at Villa Park over the past several years, this could end up being a shrewd signing indeed, ensuring this club lands yet another player who can lead them to title-winning success.

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