Villa midfielder offers honest assessment of Norway threat
Aston Villa's Morgan Rogers has given a refreshingly candid verdict on the size of the task awaiting England in their World Cup quarter-final against Norway, admitting that stopping Erling Haaland might not actually be possible.
The Manchester City striker has scored seven goals in the tournament so far, putting him firmly in the Golden Boot conversation. Rogers, who encounters Haaland regularly in the Premier League, was asked how England might go about limiting a forward of such quality.
His response was characteristically straight-talking.
“Has anyone ever stopped Erling Haaland? I'm not sure they have but we are going to have to try,” said Rogers. “I think he's such an unbelievable player, the things he does, the numbers he puts up, you're just in awe of how good he is and the level he's at.”
The Villa midfielder did not stop at identifying the problem. He offered a practical approach to containing it.
“We're going to have to maybe try and stop how they play and work on those things and stop how the balls go into him and how he gets his chances because he's so deadly in front of goal. We've got to be aware of that. We've got to know that.”
Rogers was careful, however, not to let the conversation become a one-man show. The Manchester City academy graduate warned against tunnel vision, pointing out that Norway's strength runs deeper than their star striker.
“But also, it's not just him. They've got other good players as well that we play against regularly in the Premier League that we need to be mindful of. They're a really good team. I think that's what their biggest super strength is, that as a team, as a unit, they're so strong.”
Rogers's experience of facing Haaland in domestic competition gives his words weight. He has seen the movement, the physicality, the finishing up close. If anyone in the England camp is qualified to describe the challenge, it is someone who has already lived it.
The admission that nobody has definitively stopped Haaland is about as honest a starting point as any England player could offer. It suggests the squad has accepted that minimising his threat, rather than eliminating it entirely, is the more realistic ambition.
Whether England can solve a problem that Rogers himself admits has no obvious precedent will be answered when the two sides meet in one of the most eagerly anticipated quarter-finals of the tournament.