Ian Wright ‘gutted’ as Arsenal miss out on Morgan Rogers
Ian Wright has never been shy about what Arsenal need. This time, the club’s former No. 8 cut straight to the point: the summer window may not have been a disaster, but it missed the one signing Mikel Arteta wanted most.
Arsenal spent the off-season scouring the market for another attacking spark after wrapping up an early deal for Christos Tzolis from Club Brugge. The brief was clear: find a difference-maker in the final third, someone to tilt tight games, someone to change the picture on that left side.
Names flashed across the radar. Morgan Rogers. Vinicius Junior. Julian Alvarez. All high on Arsenal’s list. All, in different ways, out of reach by the time the window shut.
Arteta still got reinforcements. Bruno Guimaraes arrived to add control and thrust in midfield. Ezri Konsa came in to deepen the defensive options and raise the level of the squad. On paper, it looked like a smart, structured window.
For Wright, it still fell short.
Speaking on The Overlap, the Arsenal legend laid bare his frustration at seeing Rogers head to Chelsea in a £117m deal after weeks in which Arsenal appeared to be leading the race.
“It’s not a disastrous window,” Wright 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.”
The picture he painted was stark. Arsenal, locked on to Vinicius Junior as the marquee dream, left Rogers waiting in the background. Chelsea didn’t. They stepped in, paid the fee, and walked away with a player Wright believes was tailor-made for Arteta’s system.
Arsenal are gearing up for another title push. The margins at the top are thin, and Wright fears the absence of a top-tier left-sided attacker could prove costly as the season wears on.
“You say we have got those types of players but that is what Mikel wanted,” he added. “It is a position where we need that player. 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.”
The concern runs deeper than one lost target. Wright hinted at the message Arsenal’s pursuit of Vinicius Junior might have sent to other forwards watching from afar.
“There’s something that’s happened with Arsenal with the way they were going for Vini,” he said. “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.”
The timing of this regret could hardly be more pointed. Arsenal’s next Premier League assignment is a trip to face Chelsea, where Rogers will be out to justify that enormous fee and underline exactly what Wright believes his old club are missing.
The narrative writes itself: Arteta’s side, chasing a title, up against a Chelsea team that not only see themselves as contenders but have just beaten them to a key target.
Peter Crouch, looking ahead to the clash, senses a statement coming from Stamford Bridge.
“Great game! Two teams looking good as well,” Crouch said. “I’m going to put the cat amongst the pigeons and I’m going to go for a 3-2 Chelsea win. I think they’ve announced themselves as title contenders.”
So Arsenal arrive in west London with a strengthened squad but, in Wright’s eyes, still without the one forward their manager craved. Chelsea arrive with Rogers, a huge price tag, and growing belief.
If the new Chelsea signing makes the difference in a high-stakes meeting between two would-be champions, Wright won’t be the only one at Arsenal feeling gutted.
