It is only two months since Morgan Rogers was standing on the Stadium of Light pitch, looking confused as Unai Emery berated him for failing to anticipate a through-ball as Aston Villa failed to beat a team that played for an hour with 10 men. At that point, as Villa went six without a win, it wasn’t clear whether Rogers’ form was a symptom or a cause of Villa’s more general malaise.
There was a volcanic touchline reaction from Emery on Sunday as well, but this was rather more positive. As Rogers swept in his second of the game to restore Villa’s lead, Emery ripped off his thick padded coat, spread his arms and roared. Villa were on their way to a 10th successive win and, having failed to win any of their first six games of the season, are somehow only three points behind the leaders Arsenal.
Are they in the title race? That’s a rather hard question to answer.
History, at least in the postwar era, a general sense of the status of the club, suggests not. And they have not been entirely convincing in many games this season, even as the wins have stacked up. In only two games this season have Villa had an xG more than 0.5 greater than their opponents, according to Opta. For a team that have just won 10 in a row, Villa look weirdly vulnerable – but at the moment the margins are falling their way.
Their recent policy seems to be to trade blows with an opponent and wait for Rogers to bail them out with a couple of crisp finishes. It happened at Leeds, it happened at West Ham, and it happened against Manchester United.
Rogers’ first goal stemmed from a brilliant finish, arced just inside the post from the corner of the box, but United couldn’t have done much more to guide him into position. He spent a lot of the game drifting left, haunting the space behind Diogo Dalot. As John McGinn found Rogers, Leny Yoro didn’t exactly charge over to close the 23-year-old down, even though the ball was bouncing awkwardly and required some controlling. The England forward had time to wander back on to his right foot, create the angle for the shot and then deposit the ball into the top corner.
When he replaced Jude Bellingham in the England side for the World Cup qualifier away to Serbia 12 days before that draw at Sunderland, it felt very much that Rogers was being used to make a point. The thought of him starting at the World Cup next summer seemed distant, not with Phil Foden and Cole Palmer also contending with Bellingham for the role behind Harry Kane. But on this form, it’s hard to see how Rogers could be left out.
At the moment, Rogers is in one of those golden spells of form in which it seems that he cannot miss. If the ball falls within the arc of his right foot, it will end up in the net. His second goal was essentially a slight scruffier version of his first as he seized on an Ollie Watkins lay-off, took advantage of further dilatory defending from Yoro and clipped his shot past Senne Lammens.
Forewarned, you might have thought was forearmed, but perhaps Rogers’ right foot is becoming like Arjen Robben’s left: just because you know he’s going to whip the ball into the top corner doesn’t mean you can stop him. Or perhaps this was just a game against Manchester United, a club whose journey through the wilderness shows no sign of reaching a destination any time soon. They weren’t terrible, but they had nobody with the decisiveness of Rogers, while the tendency towards self-destruction remains strong.
Can Villa sustain this? Logic says not. United had more shots and more shots on target than Villa. They’ve won each of their last eight games by a single goal. They’ve conceded in all but one of those games. Regression to the mean might be the biggest rival Villa have to face over the coming weeks. Rogers, surely, cannot keep on thrashing the ball into the top corner.
Perhaps there is another reality in which, rather than results trending towards performances, performances begin to trend towards results. Maybe Watkins rediscovers his best form and starts scoring again. Maybe Jadon Sancho turns into the player he looked at Borussia Dortmund. Maybe Harvey Elliott rediscovers his form. Tyrone Mings and Pau Torres will eventually return from injury. Perhaps there is in that the possibility of a title challenge, but they surely cannot keep relying on Rogers.
But then nobody expected this. Nobody thought Villa would be third at Christmas. And certainly two months ago, nobody thought Rogers by the end of the year would be spearheading a title charge while looking like a vital England player. The current run is to be savoured precisely because it feels so unlikely. As Rogers stood in front of the North End at the final whistle conducting the cheers of the crowd, he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it. As he deserves to. These spells are rare in football and should be relished.
