Aston Villa decided to keep Jhon Duran this summer despite serious interest from West Ham and even cursory interest from other Premier League clubs in need of a No. 9, such as Chelsea.
But Unai Emery valued the Colombian highly, as he didn’t listen to Duran’s transfer request or the competitive offers from the Hammers. Emery was probably never seriously considering selling Duran, even though he already has one of the best strikers in the Premier League at his disposal in 2023/24 Player of the Season candidate Ollie Watkins.
Now, Emery has two legitimate 20-goal candidates at striker in Watkins and Duran, with Watkins being more well-rounded and Duran being even more decisive with his finishing.
Duran has scored a team-high 4 Premier League goals in just 131 minutes despite never starting a game, as all five of his appearances have come off the bench for Watkins.
Yet as brilliant as Duran has been, the young Colombian striker isn’t even the biggest breakout star for Aston Villa so far in the 2024/25 season, because that honor belongs to Morgan Rogers.
The 22-year-old attacking midfielder has two assists, and his all-around play through five Premier League matches has been even more impressive. He is averaging 2.2 dribbles completed and 1.8 key passes per game.
Rogers has shown up well in the Champions League, too, posting four key passes and four dribbles completed as the Lions had no problems defeating the Young Boys in their first ever Champions League game.
The way Rogers is taking defenders on, setting up teammates, and wreaking havoc makes life so much easier for the strikers like Watkins and Duran to do their thing and put goals into the back of the net.
And that’s the thing about modern playmakers like Rogers. They are easy for people who don’t watch a team at least semi-regularly to overlook, because it’s convenient to look at highlights of goals on YouTube or the box score and totally miss a guy like Rogers doing the dirtier work on the ball to make things happen.
But when you watch Aston Villa, it’s so clear how much Rogers pops out at you, and it’s crazy to think that he was a little-known player who wasn’t even starting for Middlesborough last season – and now he’s been one of the best players in his role in the whole Premier League thus far.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.