Morgan Rogers insists Aston Villa’s UEFA Champions League quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain is “not done yet” and there remains plenty of belief in the ranks heading into next week’s second leg.
Villa fell to a 3-1 defeat in Tuesday night’s first leg at the Parc des Princes, with everything to play for heading into next week’s return meeting at Villa Park.
Morgan Rogers put the visitors ahead in the 35th minute as he converted a well-worked move register his 14th goal of an impressive campaign.
But the lead was short lived as Desire Doue levelled for PSG with a 20-yard strike off the underside of the crossbar, before Khvicha Kvaratskhelia added a second off the inside of a post early in the second half.
Nuno Mendes then added a third for Les Rouge-et-Bleu in the 92nd minute, to secure a two-goal advantage for the Parisians ahead of the second leg.
“We’ve got loads of belief in the changing room,” said an upbeat Rogers.
“We’ve got nothing to lose, no-one had us to win the tie in the first place.
“So, why not just go for it? That’s the mentality I have, that’s the mentality everyone has and the manager as well.
“We’ve just got to keep going for it and keep believing we can do it and see where it takes us.
“We’ve definitely got the quality to turn this around – it’s not done yet.”
Rogers added: “We’ve got quality in our dressing room, we know that.
“We’re here for a reason, we’re not just here to compete.
“We want to fight, we want to try to win and we want to try and score goals.
“Normally, we’ve got enough quality in the room to cause any team in the world problems.
“I think we did at times tonight, probably liked to have a bit more, but now we’re going back home and that’s where we know our best form and the way we play is better at home this season.
“We’ll be looking forward to it and hopefully we can win.”
Villa produced a well-organised and hard-working performance in the French capital, standing firm against PSG dominance while proving a threat of their own on the counter-attack.
Unai Emery’s side are unbeaten in 17 matches on home soil in all competitions, stretching back to November, and are undefeated in Europe in B6 this season.
The newly-crowned French champions got the better of Villa in the first-ever meeting between the two sides in European competition, although the last eight remains firmly in the balance.
And the two sides will do it all again in the second leg in six days’ time, with a place in the semi-finals of Europe’s elite club competition awaiting the winners.
“It was difficult, they’re a really good team, really well organised and have stars all over the pitch,” said Rogers.
“It’s difficult, we knew we were in a fight, we knew we had to defend well and battle.
“Overall, we did, probably just a bit of quality from them and maybe errors or a little bit of something that happened that probably we could prevented for the goals.
“But that’s football, that’s what happens.
“We’ve got another leg to try and turn it around, we’re going to go for everything and try to win the tie and we’ll see where it takes us.”
