'I needed to be taken out of my comfort zone' - How Rogers' value fell then rose

Three years before becoming Chelsea's £117m club-record signing, Morgan Rogers watched his value fall to just £1m and questioned whether he would make it at all.

For Rogers, the transition from academy football to the men's game was not as seamless as he had hoped and, in his own words, it took a series of "difficult loans" for him to break through.

In a recent interview with Chelsea's club channel, Rogers said that period taught him how to "take knocks".

Asked what his rise through the EFL had taught him, he replied: "Everything."

After a long pause, he added: "I needed that next challenge, to be taken out of my comfort zone and find the player I was going to be in professional football.

"I don't think there's such a thing as a bad loan," Rogers' first loan manager at Lincoln City, Michael Appleton, told BBC Sport.

Appleton had worked in West Brom's academy and knew Rogers was one of the most highly rated prospects there. He made it his mission to bring him to Sincil Bank in League One.

He remembers Rogers having a big personality and speaking up in team meetings despite arriving as an 18-year-old. The forward went on to score six goals and provide two assists in 28 appearances after joining shortly after lockdown.

"We played Portsmouth away and they had three or four absolute units in the team," he added. "We were setting up for set-pieces and almost running out of players to pick up these giants.

"Without any hesitation whatsoever, Morgan said: 'Make me a marker. I'll head the ball out of our box.'

"This was a teenager on his first loan."

Read more on Rogers' journey from the EFL to England international here