Aston Villa’s former president of football operations Monchi has confirmed Kieran Scott’s long held suspicions over the Middlesbrough exit of Morgan Rogers.
Monchi was in charge of transfers at Villa Park in January 2024 when Villa signed Rogers from Boro in a deal worth up to £16 million. At the time, it was a move that shocked Boro, because it came just six months after they paid Manchester City a little over £1 million to sign him, with the forward only just starting to break through on Teesside at that point.
Discussing the shock at Villa’s exit in the past, Boro’s head of football Scott has previously said he believes Villa’s scouting for that month’s FA Cup clash between the two clubs played a significant role in the move. For him, the fact that Boro had negotiated a transfer for Finn Azaz with the Midlands club just weeks earlier with no mention at all of Rogers at that time was confirmation that, until after the Riverside cup clash, Rogers was not a Villa target.
Speaking with Flashscore in his first interview since leaving the Premier League side, Monchi has confirmed Scott’s suspicions, saying: “I think it's a joint signing, isn't it, between the sporting management and the coaching staff. Because we already had good reports on Morgan.
“We played against them in the FA Cup and Unai [Emery] saw him, both in the pre-match and during the match. Apart from being a homegrown player, apart from being young, a typical profile of a footballer who succeeds in England, right, who has very, very good physical attributes, but also technically.”
Despite only just starting to emerge at Boro at the time of exit, his move to Villa has proven a successful one. Establishing himself as a star at Villa Park, he’s also broken into the England set-up and looks a likely contender to be part of Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad next summer.
Even Monchi admits to being surprised at just how well he’s done since the move from Boro, however. He continued: “We saw a potential that, to be honest, wasn't as much as it turned out to be. Yes, we thought he was going to be a player, but the truth is that we were all surprised and, fortunately, in a positive way.”
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