Ian Wright ‘Gutted’ Over Arsenal Losing Morgan Rogers to Chelsea
Ian Wright has laid bare his frustration at Arsenal’s summer business, admitting he was “gutted” to see Morgan Rogers slip through the club’s fingers and land at Chelsea in a £117m deal.
Arsenal spent the window hunting for another attacking spark after moving early to bring in Christos Tzolis from Club Brugge. The plan was clear: find a forward who could change games on the biggest nights. Names like Morgan Rogers, Vinicius Junior and Julian Alvarez sat high on their list as Mikel Arteta pushed for a new left-sided difference-maker.
They didn’t get one.
Arteta still saw his squad strengthened in other areas, with Bruno Guimaraes and Ezri Konsa arriving to add steel and quality. Yet for Wright, speaking on The Overlap, the window left a nagging sense of what might have been.
“It’s not a disastrous window,” he said, “but if I’m Mikel, I wouldn’t be happy with how this window has gone simply because we’ve gone another window where we have not got that forward.
“Mikel has talked about getting players to take us to that level, he did it again after Paris, where we didn’t have that player to break them. That is the player Mikel wanted. They chased Vini until the end of the earth and left Morgan Rogers dangling.”
For a club gearing up for another title tilt, that gap on the left worries Wright. Arsenal’s spine looks strong, the core of last season’s push remains intact, but he believes the absence of a top-tier attacking addition in that role could linger over the campaign.
“You say we have got those types of players but that is what Mikel wanted. It is a position where we need that player,” Wright continued. “Of course Saka is back, Odegaard is back, Havertz is back and playing together, but he wanted that difference-maker.
“He [Rogers] is the one we were linked with ages ago and he would have loved to have come, I can feel it.”
For Wright, the way Arsenal handled their pursuit of Vinicius Junior only deepens the frustration. The club’s relentless chase of the Brazilian, he feels, may have sent the wrong message to other targets.
“There’s something that’s happened with Arsenal with the way they were going for Vini. If you’re a player and you see a team going for him, you think, ‘I thought they were interested in me?’ It is the player the manager wanted. Chelsea thought, well if you’re not going to pay it, we’ll pay it. I’m gutted, I would have loved him to come.”
Now, the narrative sharpens. Arsenal travel to face Chelsea in the Premier League this weekend, with Rogers potentially lining up in blue against the club that chased him, then let him slip.
Peter Crouch expects that decision to sting on the pitch as well as off it. Looking ahead to the clash, he backed Xabi Alonso’s side to edge a thriller.
“Great game! Two teams looking good as well. I’m going to put the cat amongst the pigeons and I’m going to go for a 3-2 Chelsea win,” Crouch said. “I think they’ve announced themselves as title contenders.”
If Rogers plays a decisive role at the weekend, Arsenal won’t just be facing a rival. They’ll be staring straight at the forward Ian Wright believes should have been theirs.
