On another evening of theatre at Villa Park, it was fitting that the match-winner Morgan Rogers was last to leave the stage. There is simply no stopping this Aston Villa machine, cylinders pumping, handcrafted by Unai Emery, who reacted to Rogers’s second goal against Manchester United by launching his jacket into the night sky. “Birmingham, are you listening?” came the chorus from the home support but this was a victory with far wider implications.
Approaching the halfway stage of the season, Villa, third and three points behind Premier League leaders Arsenal, are ensconced in the title race, two more Rogers goals earning a 10th straight win in all competitions and rendering Matheus Cunha’s well-taken equaliser a consolation. The discourse and debate will run wild after this latest Villa win, a seventh in a row in the league, but it was one that undoubtedly belonged to Rogers’s individual brilliance. After his second goal, Rogers spread his arms, screwed up his face and shrugged as if to say: “Well, what am I supposed to do?”
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