Emery accepts Villa earned ´very good point´, hails ´fantastic´ Rogers in Bournemouth draw

Unai Emery hailed the “fantastic” Morgan Rogers and accepted his Aston Villa side earned a “very good point” in Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Bournemouth.

The Villans missed the chance to go second in the Premier League after surrendering the lead at the Vitality Stadium on Saturday.

Rogers scored his 10th goal in all competitions this season with a lovely driven effort into the roof of the net in the first half to put Villa in front. Only Erling Haaland (eight) and Igor Thiago (seven) have scored more Premier League away goals this season than Rogers (six), while his eight league goals this season is already as many as he managed in 2024-25.

But Bournemouth roared back 10 minutes after the restart through Rayan, while Emiliano Martinez had to be on top form to deny two brilliant Ryan Christie efforts late on.

Speaking about Rogers’ impressive campaign, Villa boss Emery told BBC Sport: “It’s fantastic. He’s doing a fantastic season.

“He was always pushing, helping. Everyone was feeling good playing with him.”

A point on the road pic.twitter.com/3uao1b41K3

— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) February 7, 2026

Only against Brighton in February 2021 (nine) and against Liverpool in both July 2020 and April 2021 (eight) has Martinez made more saves in a Premier League game than his seven against Bournemouth.

And Emery conceded that Bournemouth made life extremely difficult for his side on the South Coast.

He added: “The second half we couldn’t [play how they wanted], they pushed us.

“They were in our box more times than we wanted. We tried to get some momentum to dominate. We created one chance with Matty Cash, but they created more. It’s a very good point.

“We defended fantastic. It’s necessary to practice defending throw-ins and corners. A lot of duels. They are producing a lot of hands. We must fight.”

One positive for Emery was the overall performance of Jadon Sancho, who assisted Rogers’ goal as part of two chances created for his team-mates in a spritely outing.

“He’s progressing. He’s getting better. Hopefully he can help us more and more this season,” Emery added.