Aston Villa have not given up on their pursuit of Middlesbrough forward Morgan Rogers and they remain confident of sealing a deal before the January transfer window closes, HITC understands.
The 21-year-old only joined Boro in the summer and has grown with confidence since his arrival on Teesside and has impressed enough to catch the attention of Villa.
Rogers impressed Villa boss Unai Emery in their FA Cup fourth round win at Boro and off the back of that display, they firmed up their interest with an opening offer – as revealed by HITC.
Third offer
Villa have now come back with a third offer for Rogers, which is believed could be worth up to £15million – if certain criteria is met.
Boro have so far been dogged in their refusal to sell, but HITC understands Rogers is keen to make the move to the Second City.
Boro boss Michael Carrick insists that he is no hurry to lose Rogers from his attacking options going into the second-half of the season.
Carrick wants Rogers to stay
“You’ll keep reading a lot of things at this time of year, don’t read too much into it to be honest,” said Carrick after Boro’s recent League Cup 6-1 loss to Chelsea, which saw Rogers claim the consolation effort.
“He’s our player at the minute so I have no reason to believe anything otherwise.”
Carrick is hoping that he can add further to his squad in the last few days of the window, after he was able to add Leicester’s Luke Thomas to his squad last week.
Thomas has been on-loan at Sheffield United before returning to the King Power Stadium, but Boro moved quickly to finalise a deal and he joins Luke Ayling in bolstering Carrick’s options on Teesside.
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