Aston Villa missing out on Champions League football to Chelsea on the final day of the Premier League could have massive consequences
After a certified dud of a transfer window last summer, 2025 is making up for lost time with Florian Wirtz, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Rodrygo and Jack Grealish all certified megastars who are either on the move or look set to be.
Rogers is one of the brightest stars in the Premier League right now after a superlative coming-of-age season in which he clocked 29 goal contributions including a Champions League hat-trick against Celtic and knockout goal against PSG, and made his England debut.
Alongside playing his first minutes for the Three Lions in November, Rogers also inked a bumper contract extension that could keep him at Villa Park until at least 2030, or give Unai Emery a very strong bargaining position to raise funds to keep his side in the green financially.
Chelsea remain in the driving seat for Rogers but could avoid paying Villa’s £90 million price tag by sending two stars to the Midlands in a blockbuster swap deal that would still net plenty of cash for Emery, as Joao Felix and Axel Disasi are a potentially winning combination.
Morgan Rogers would complete all-star Chelsea attack
It shouldn’t take much to sell Chelsea fans on the fearsome attacking quartet of Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers, Liam Delap and one of Noni Madueke or Pedro Neto. While Palmer and Rogers both prefer to play centrally, they’ve been deployed across the forward line in their careers and Rogers’ creative spark would dovetail well with the former’s more direct goal threat.
Ironically for a team whose game is so geared towards possession, Chelsea’s struggles were exacerbated when they saw more of the ball in 2024/25 especially as the season progressed (like Enzo Maresca’s Leicester the season before), and Rogers’ verve around the edge of the penalty area would be a perfect antidote.
Meanwhile if Palmer, Rogers, Madueke and Delap dovetail well enough it could convince Thomas Tuchel to trust them at the 2026 World Cup - none are assured of a place in the starting XI while only Palmer will feel confident of his place in the squad right now.
While Chelsea seem impervious to Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), Enzo Maresca still has a limit to how many players he can select in a starting XI and across a Premier League season, so offloading two stars who appear surplus to requirements could help sweeten the deal at Villa.
Aston Villa can re-sign star and bring in Jack Grealish-like forward
The Villans have a history of signing big-name attackers on loan or permanently, most recently Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford plus Philippe Coutinho (hey, we never said they were all successful), and Felix could be the next name on that list. The Portuguese striker is one of the most expensive players in history with his aggregate transfer fee sitting at a cool €195.70m (£165m), and it’s fair to say he’s not lived up to the billing.
But he’s also not been put in the best positions to succeed. For a free-spirited attacker, Diego Simeone’s rigid system at Atletico Madrid was kryptonite for Felix and being just one name in a star-studded attacking lineup for both Portugal and Chelsea, and Barcelona, and AC Milan hasn’t allowed the now-25-year-old to recover the joyous form of his early career.
Aston Villa would allow Felix to return to his preferred status as the biggest fish in the pond and he could reward them with a similar impact to the one Jack Grealish made in the West Midlands while Felix would still have a more than adequate supporting cast surrounded by Ollie Watkins, Jacob Ramsay and Youri Tielemans.
The case for Disasi is much simpler - he enjoyed a successful loan spell at Villa Park this year and fills a position of need for Unai Emery, while Chelsea are unlikely to miss him.
Chelsea would want €35-40m (£29-34m) for Felix’s services with AC Milan interested in another loan move, this time with the obligation to buy, and the Blues appear content to break even or make a small loss on the £38 million they paid for Disasi in 2023 with the 27-year-old still under contract for four years.
Continue Reading