Should Morgan Rogers play for England? Why the Aston Villa man may not be ready just yet

Lee Carsley will name his second England squad as interim head coach on Thursday afternoon, ahead of Nations League games against Greece at Wembley and Finland in Helsinki. Carsley’s first squad included quite a few young players who are still establishing themselves at the top level, so it wouldn’t be surprising if his next team was equally inexperienced – but few up-and-coming talents are making their case for a call-up quite as impressively as Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers.

Rogers has played for England at every age group apart from the Under-19s and has earned five Under-21 caps this year already, some of them under Carsley himself, so the new manager and his team will know all about the former Middlesbrough winger. Even if they didn’t, his form so far this season has been so eye-catching that he would surely have earned a closer look. The question is whether he’s ready for the top table right now or not.

A growing force in English football

His performances in the Premier League certainly imply that he is. A swashbuckling attacking midfielder who bridges the gap between Unai Emery’s midfield and attack with style and bravado, his daring running and willingness to take on his man and break the lines has stood out a mile, even in a league crowded with thrilling players. For Villa, he’s been little short of a revelation – just eight months after signing him from Middlesbrough, he’s become an established first-team regular and his ability to drive play quickly up towards Ollie Watkins and Jhon Durán has made the loss of Douglas Luiz much easier to bear.

He's also starting to turn all those darting runs into end product. For all that he passed the eye test by a mile, he didn’t actually score or set any goals up for the first four weeks of the season. Since then, however, he’s scored a fine goal against Ipswich Town and picked up two assists against Wolves. We’ll soon find out whether it amounts to enough good work to earn a first call-up at the age of 22.

Of course, the decision won’t just come down to whether Rogers himself is ready – but how good he is compared to other players who might play in his position. Although more than able to play on the wing, Rogers is making his name through the middle, and there he will face competition from Jack Grealish, who played in that role for Carsley in the wins against the Republic of Ireland and Finland in September, and the returning Jude Bellingham.

That is some stiff competition for a place and doesn’t even take into account potential call-ups for James Maddison, whose recent form has re-opened the debate about his place in the national side, or Eberechi Eze, who can play centrally or wide left. Getting into the modern England squad isn’t easy.

What the stats say

The statistics provide an insight into how Rogers stacks up against his potential rivals for a place in the side against Greece and Finland. There are, as you might expect, some good signs in the dribbling department – Rogers beats a man successfully more often than any of the other players likely to be under consideration.

Past that, however, you begin to see the value of players like Grealish and Bellingham when you look at their output. Rogers, for instance, has created an average of 3.68 shooting chances per match for his team-mates so far this season in the Premier League. Grealish, however, creates 6.74, the better part of twice as many. Bellingham, meanwhile, doesn’t put so many more opportunities on plates for the players around him than Rogers, but does score a lot more and picks more than twice as many expected goals per league game.

That’s where the gap between a developing young player like Rogers and more established players (even those like Bellingham who are actually slightly younger) becomes apparent – they know how to turn their skill and daring into goals, whether it’s for them or for those around them.

The table above shows how Rogers compares with the players he’s up against when it comes to creating and scoring goals over the past year of their respective careers. As you can see, as exciting as Rogers unquestionably is, his counterparts simply convert that into more goals, more assists, more passes and more chances than he does as it stands.

No matter how deep you dig into the numbers, the stats say the same thing – that other players who could play in the same role are simply better all-round players, at least for now, and often much better at specific things such as passing or shot creation. Even with those dribbling stats, there are caveats. Rogers beats a man on the run more than anyone else in the discussion, but that’s partly because of the sheer number of times he tries it. He actually succeeds considerably less often than, say, Grealish, at least when it’s expressed as a percentage. Indeed, looking at the numbers in details provides more compelling evidence for Maddison’s recall than for a debut for Rogers.

None of which means that Rogers hasn’t earned the right to have a good look taken at him by the England coaching staff, because he has been superb since he arrived back in February – but perhaps that’s exactly what the Under-21s are for. A player of Rogers’ talents would surely thrive against sides like Greece and Finland, but when winning is what counts, right now, you’d be foolish to take him over the world-class players who currently occupy the prime spots in the pecking order.

Rogers is a coming force and getting better by the month, and has a thrilling future, but perhaps his time hasn’t come yet. Whether Carsley sees it the same way will become clear on Thursday afternoon.