Arsenal have already signed their own Morgan Rogers

Are Arsenal‘s transfer team failing Mikel Arteta? After failing to secure the club’s number one target in Morgan Rogers, it certainly feels like it.

The Gunners were on the verge of finalising personal terms with the Aston Villa man, only for Chelsea to swoop in with a £117m bid, blowing away Arsenal and stealing him from their clutches.

For Arteta, this is nothing new. It feels like in every year his primary target is not secured.

Four years ago, it was Raphinha. Three years ago it was Moises Caicedo. A year ago it was Alexander Isak.

To be fair, even for Chelsea, the £117m fee Rogers will be sold for is astronomical but there was no way Arsenal were ever going to go to that price. It’s perhaps indicative of just how much they did or did not want him that they were unwilling to match Chelsea’s bid.

How Morgan Rogers has become a £117m superstar

Let’s put it this way. In any ordinary transfer window, Rogers would not be sold for £117m. He is not worth that amount whatsoever.

Yet, in the context of how this market has played out, it is not much of a surprise to see him sold for such a fee. Elliot Anderson has moved from Nottingham Forest to Manchester City for £116m. Rogers is better than him. Sandro Tonali has moved to Tottenham Hotspur for £100m. The Englishman is also better than him.

The state of the market is worrying for Arsenal, particularly as they are not too favourable of going beyond the £100m mark. The only time they have ever done so was to sign Declan Rice for £105m. That feels like a bargain now.

He was the most expensive English player of all time until Anderson and Rogers were sold this summer; that’s how bonkers the market is in 2026.

Arsenal will no doubt be gutted to miss out on him. While not that very elite level yet, Arteta viewed the 23-year-old as the game-changing signing he needed to take the attack to the next level.

He’s one of the most promising young English players around and they always come at a premium, particularly if they score and assist regularly. In 2024/25, the attacking midfielder netted 14 times and supplied 16 assists. Last season he bagged another 14 and supplied 12 assists for his teammates.

Is that what £117m gets you now? If you’re buying from within the Premier League, it looks that way.

With Rogers bound for Chelsea, Arsenal will need to seek alternatives. The likes of Bradley Barcola and Yan Diomande have both been touted but perhaps there is an internal solution for Arteta.

Arsenal have already signed their own Morgan Rogers

Sure, missing out on Rogers is gutting for Arteta and Co. However, the truth is, was he really the type of profile that Arsenal needed this summer? Arguably not.

What the Gunners really need is an out and out winger. They need a Bukayo Saka type of figure over on the left. They essentially need a more explosive version of Leandro Trossard. That’s why Barcola is being spoken about so glowingly by Arsenal supporters right now.

In the Frenchman, they would sign “one of the best left wingers in Europe” in the words of Como scout Ben Mattinson. He ticks so many boxes.

Yet, that is not the only reason missing out on Rogers could well be a blessing in disguise. Indeed, it can be argued that they already have his profile in the shape of the enigmatic Eberechi Eze.

The former Crystal Palace man moved from Selhurst Park a year ago after Arsenal hijacked Spurs’ move to sign the attacking midfielder.

It was a remarkable sequence of events as Berta and Arteta pounced swiftly to steal him away from their great rivals. An attacking midfielder by trade who can also play on the flanks, he’s very similar to the aforementioned Rogers.

They like playing in the same areas, are confident at running with the ball and they both score and assist in pretty equal measure. However, it would be safe to say it hasn’t quite happened for Eze in Arsenal colours.

He’s got this nonchalant and casual attitude to his play. When he’s playing well, it looks great, but when he’s playing poorly, as Arsenal writer Connor Humm put it last season, he ends up strolling “around like [Mesut] Ozil.”

Eze finished the title-winning season with ten goals in all competitions – five of which came against Spurs – and six assists. However, the season before, he delivered very Rogers-like numbers, netting 14 times, the same number his England colleague has registered now in back to back seasons.

What is also likely to please Arsenal supporters is Eze’s performance in the bronze medal clash between England and France. The Arsenal man actually played alongside Rogers as duel 10s and it was the former who came out on top, providing a lovely assist for Bukayo Saka’s second goal of the tie.

That match was Eze in a nutshell. He played between the lines tremendously well and demonstrated that like Rogers, he very much has his own running power and ability to carry the ball past defenders.

At over £100m, the Villa superstar would have been the shiny new toy but let us not forget what Arsenal already have. Eze got stronger as the season went on and should get even better now with a year in Arteta’s system under his belt.