Arsenal Targets Leicester's Jeremy Monga as Future Left-Wing Star
Arsenal’s recruitment department has spent the last few years stockpiling some of the best teenage talent in the country. Now their gaze has fixed on another: Leicester City’s Jeremy Monga, a 16-year-old winger who already looks far too advanced for the chaos around him.
football.london understands Arsenal are pushing to secure a deal for the teenager this summer, with the club convinced he can eventually solve a looming problem on the left flank.
A street footballer in a professional arena
Monga’s rise has been one of the few bright sparks in Leicester’s slide. He made his Premier League debut in the 2024/25 season and then became a regular in the Championship, even as the club tumbled into League One.
Josh Holland, Leicester City correspondent for LeicestershireLive and the Leicester Mercury, has watched that journey closely – and his assessment is blunt.
“Monga plays football at a professional standard, like he is playing in the street,” Holland told football.london. A “remarkable ball-carrier,” as he put it, who lives for the moment he can isolate a defender, beat him, and drive his team up the pitch.
His game is built on that daring. Monga starts high and wide on the left, hugging the touchline, demanding the ball. Once it arrives, he cuts in with sharp, aggressive carries, using both feet and that “incredible agility” Holland describes to wrong-foot markers and slice into central areas.
Leicester, Holland believes, barely scratched the surface. “Leicester didn’t use him anywhere near as much as they should have last season in the Championship,” he said, a stinging verdict on a campaign that ended in relegation and regret.
Why Arsenal are moving now
Arsenal’s interest isn’t happening in a vacuum. The club’s academy and youth recruitment have produced a cluster of high-level prospects already nudging at Mikel Arteta’s first team: Max Dowman, Marli Salmon, Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly. There is a clear pathway, and Arteta has shown he is not afraid to use it.
But there is a gap. With uncertainty around the futures of Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard, the long-term picture on the left wing is far less secure than it looks on a teamsheet today. The club see Monga as a player who can grow into that space, rather than be thrown into it.
Holland draws a line between Monga and one of Arsenal’s current crown jewels in that age group. “They’re different players, but there are big similarities between Monga and Max Dowman,” he said. The comparison is not made lightly; Dowman has already forced his way into the conversation at the Emirates.
When Monga first stepped into Leicester’s senior side at the back end of the 2024/25 Premier League season, the effect was immediate. “He was turning defenders inside out,” Holland recalled. “It genuinely felt like City had a generational talent.”
That word – generational – tends to follow players who glide past opponents rather than simply run beyond them. Monga has that glide.
Not one for the present, but very much for the future
For all the excitement, no one at Arsenal expects Monga to walk straight into Arteta’s matchday squad. Holland agrees that an immediate role is unlikely.
“I don’t expect him to feature for Arsenal anytime soon,” he admitted. “Give him one more season, and I think he’d be ready to be a key member of Mikel Arteta’s side.”
That timeline suits Arsenal’s wider plans. The club are actively looking for a more established wide left player this summer, with Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers identified as the primary target. Any move for Monga would run alongside that, not instead of it.
The model is clear. Arsenal buy elite potential early, integrate it carefully, and let the environment do the rest. Dowman’s emergence this season is proof that Arteta will hand minutes to teenagers if they earn his trust and the moment is right.
There have been questions around Monga’s drop in minutes after that initial burst and murmurs over his attitude, but Holland pushes back on any suggestion of a deeper issue.
“His drop in expected minutes was a concern, and there were some doubts over his attitude,” he said. “But I’m in the camp that he’s just a 16-year-old taking the pressure in his stride, and he’s not an emotional figure.”
In other words: a teenager learning on the job in a club spiralling towards relegation. Arsenal will back their structure to iron out any rough edges.
The price of potential in a relegated club
The numbers involved underline how highly Monga is rated. Suggestions are that Arsenal would need to pay between £10 million and £15 million to get the deal done, with the possibility of a tribunal still on the table depending on how the move is structured.
For a 16-year-old with 37 senior appearances, that is serious money. Holland is honest about the tension that creates for Leicester.
“I’m split on this. £10m–£15m is a decent fee for a 16-year-old,” he said. “Even more so when you consider he’s only played 37 times at senior level.”
Then comes the sting. “But on the flip side. 12 months ago, the thought of him leaving for that seemed unrealistic. That’s the result of Leicester’s relegation to League One.”
Relegation changes everything. As a third-tier club, Leicester simply do not have the financial muscle – or the bargaining position – they once enjoyed.
“As a third-tier outfit, City can’t turn their nose up at that sort of fee,” Holland admitted.
That is the brutal reality Arsenal are poised to exploit: a Premier League giant with a clear pathway and a budget, moving for a teenage winger who plays like the street is his stage, at a club that can no longer afford to dream on what he might become.
If the deal happens, the real question won’t be the price. It will be how long it takes before the Emirates crowd starts to see what Leicester only glimpsed.
