Coach Thomas Tuchel justified the decision to remove Jude Bellingham from the England team partly because he wanted to experiment with alternatives, in case the Real Madrid star suffered an injury in the future.
The convincing 3-0 victory over Wales at Wembley was proof that Tuchel had not only found another option, but also discovered a real opponent for Bellingham's No. 10 position.
Morgan Rogers continued to impress strongly after a brilliant performance in the 5-0 victory over Serbia last month. The young midfielder was given the opportunity to start and only took 3 minutes to make his mark, when he cleverly finished from Marc Guehi's pass back, opening the score for England.
8 minutes after the opening goal, Rogers almost had an assist when his pass was lightly touched by Guehi before Ollie Watkins scored. In the 20th minute, Bukayo Saka made his mark with a beautiful curse, raising the score to 3-0.
With the task of proving his ability in the absence of creative stars such as Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and Jack Grealish, Tuchel has reason to be satisfied with the positive reactions of his students.
This was the first time since November 1987 that the "Three Lions" scored 3 goals in just the first 20 minutes of the match. Notably, they did it without the greatest striker in the history of the team - Harry Kane.
"I don't feel any disruption in the tempo of the game, the workload or the way we attack. The whole team is trying their best and they fully support this philosophy. They like a proactive approach, ready to attack opponents. Although that requires great physical strength and concentration, the results are worth it.
The players played at a very high level. I am satisfied with the last two matches. We are on the right track. Today, the team shows the spirit of competition like a club - that is the feeling and the cohesion that we want to build. There is healthy competition going on, everyone wants to keep their position" - Tuchel shared after the match.
In the second half, the game slowed down when the score was settled, but Rogers continued to leave his mark. The young midfielder has shown effective pressing ability, flexibility in switching positions and proactively finding space - a potential option for England.
"Morgan played very well, like the whole team today. He is humble, strong, knows how to score and assist. He has had a great season and is completely worthy of the title of Best Young Player of the Premier League last season.
That is the quality he shows. We trust this team. Why not? They have just gone through a quality training session and today proved that just one and a half sessions of training is enough to adapt and be ready to compete" - Tuchel added.
Rogers celebrated his goal with the "Cold Palmer" style - a way of accidentally mentioning his teammate and also a direct opponent for the 10th place in the national team.
Palmer is absent from this match due to a groin injury. In fact, Rogers was the first to come up with the celebration style that Palmer later transformed into his personal brand when they were both playing together at Manchester City Academy.
The Chelsea midfielder must have been watching closely the moment Rogers scored his first goal for England. The Aston Villa player may have taken the lead over Palmer in Tuchel's priority order.
