The blockbuster Aston Villa and Chelsea three-man transfer swap deal that could break the internet

After a certified dud of a transfer window last summer, 2025 is making up for lost time with Florian Wirtz, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Rodrygo and Jack Grealish all certified megastars who are either on the move or look set to be.

Yet even against that illustrious backdrop, Chelsea’s bombshell pursuit of Morgan Rogers came from nowhere and threatened to blow the transfer window off its hinges as one of the biggest intra-Premier League moves of all time.

The Villans could be in financial trouble this summer especially after missing out on Champions League football to Chelsea, boasting the 10th-highest wage bill in Europe last season which eats up almost all of their turnover even after the lucrative sale of Jhon Duran to Saudi Arabia.

Rogers is one of the brightest stars in the Premier League right now after a superlative coming-of-age season in which he clocked 29 goal contributions including a Champions League hat-trick against Celtic and knockout goal against PSG, and made his England debut.

Alongside playing his first minutes for the Three Lions in November, Rogers also inked a bumper contract extension that could keep him at Villa Park until at least 2030, or give Unai Emery a very strong bargaining position to raise funds to keep his side in the green financially.

Chelsea remain in the driving seat for Rogers but could avoid paying Villa’s £90 million price tag by sending two stars to the Midlands in a blockbuster swap deal that would still net plenty of cash for Emery, as Joao Felix and Axel Disasi are a potentially winning combination.

Morgan Rogers would complete all-star Chelsea attack

It shouldn’t take much to sell Chelsea fans on the fearsome attacking quartet of Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers, Liam Delap and one of Noni Madueke or Pedro Neto. While Palmer and Rogers both prefer to play centrally, they’ve been deployed across the forward line in their careers and Rogers’ creative spark would dovetail well with the former’s more direct goal threat.

Ironically for a team whose game is so geared towards possession, Chelsea’s struggles were exacerbated when they saw more of the ball in 2024/25 especially as the season progressed (like Enzo Maresca’s Leicester the season before), and Rogers’ verve around the edge of the penalty area would be a perfect antidote.

Neto and Madueke are experts in the wide channels so could hold the width and prevent the middle of the pitch getting too congested, while Liam Delap’s all-action style and netbusting shot could help him succeed where so many other Chelsea number 9s have failed.

Meanwhile if Palmer, Rogers, Madueke and Delap dovetail well enough it could convince Thomas Tuchel to trust them at the 2026 World Cup - none are assured of a place in the starting XI while only Palmer will feel confident of his place in the squad right now.

While Chelsea seem impervious to Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), Enzo Maresca still has a limit to how many players he can select in a starting XI and across a Premier League season, so offloading two stars who appear surplus to requirements could help sweeten the deal at Villa.

Aston Villa can re-sign star and bring in Jack Grealish-like forward

The Villans have a history of signing big-name attackers on loan or permanently, most recently Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford plus Philippe Coutinho (hey, we never said they were all successful), and Felix could be the next name on that list. The Portuguese striker is one of the most expensive players in history with his aggregate transfer fee sitting at a cool €195.70m (£165m), and it’s fair to say he’s not lived up to the billing.

But he’s also not been put in the best positions to succeed. For a free-spirited attacker, Diego Simeone’s rigid system at Atletico Madrid was kryptonite for Felix and being just one name in a star-studded attacking lineup for both Portugal and Chelsea, and Barcelona, and AC Milan hasn’t allowed the now-25-year-old to recover the joyous form of his early career.

Aston Villa would allow Felix to return to his preferred status as the biggest fish in the pond and he could reward them with a similar impact to the one Jack Grealish made in the West Midlands while Felix would still have a more than adequate supporting cast surrounded by Ollie Watkins, Jacob Ramsay and Youri Tielemans.

The case for Disasi is much simpler - he enjoyed a successful loan spell at Villa Park this year and fills a position of need for Unai Emery, while Chelsea are unlikely to miss him.

Chelsea would want €35-40m (£29-34m) for Felix’s services with AC Milan interested in another loan move, this time with the obligation to buy, and the Blues appear content to break even or make a small loss on the £38 million they paid for Disasi in 2023 with the 27-year-old still under contract for four years.

That would fill two holes for Villa while allowing them to demand at least £20-25m in cash in a summer where it’s estimated they can only afford losses of up to £15m to meet PSR requirements.