Arsenal Eyeing Leicester's Jeremy Monga for Left Flank
Arsenal are moving for the kind of talent they used to miss. This time, they do not want Jeremy Monga slipping through the net.
The 16-year-old Leicester City winger has just lived through a chaotic season: a Premier League debut in 2024/25, a rapid rise into the first-team picture, and then the cold reality of relegation from the Championship. Out of that wreckage, one thing stood out. Monga looked like he belonged.
A hole on the left – and a teenager who fits it
Mikel Arteta’s squad is rich in emerging quality. Max Dowman, Marli Salmon, Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly have already shown they can step into senior football without blinking. The pathway from Hale End to the Emirates has rarely looked clearer.
Yet down the left, the future is hazier. Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard face uncertain futures, and beneath them the conveyor belt is thinner. Arsenal have energy and promise in central areas and off the right. They lack a young, high-ceiling specialist on the left.
That is where Monga walks into the picture.
Leicester City correspondent Josh Holland, who has watched the teenager closely for LeicestershireLive and the Leicester Mercury, paints the kind of profile that makes recruitment departments lean forward.
“Monga plays football at a professional standard, like he is playing in the street,” Holland said. A street footballer’s swagger, sharpened by academy polish. “A remarkable ball-carrier who is obsessed with beating his man and driving forward.”
This is not a safe, sideways winger. He wants to hurt you.
Touchline, then chaos
Monga’s best work comes off the left. He starts high and wide, hugging the touchline, demanding the ball in isolation. Then he drives. Inwards, at pace, onto either foot.
“He’s strong on both feet and has incredible agility,” Holland explained. That combination makes him a nightmare to contain. Show him inside, he wriggles through. Force him down the line, he can still go either way.
Leicester, Holland argues, barely scratched the surface.
“Leicester didn’t use him anywhere near as much as they should have last season in the Championship,” he said. The club’s slide down the divisions played out while one of their brightest prospects watched too much of it from the sidelines.
Holland sees parallels with Arsenal’s own Max Dowman. “They’re different players, but there are big similarities between Monga and Max Dowman.” High technical level. Fearless with the ball. A natural rhythm to their game that makes senior football look like an extension of the playground.
Not for now, but very much for later
Arsenal’s priority for the left flank this summer is still an immediate first-team option. Morgan Rogers of Aston Villa sits at the top of that list. Any move for Monga is about what comes next.
Nobody inside the game expects a 16-year-old to walk into Arteta’s starting XI. Holland is clear on that too.
“I don’t expect him to feature for Arsenal anytime soon. Give him one more season, and I think he’d be ready to be a key member of Mikel Arteta’s side.”
That last line is telling. This is not a project for five years down the line. The belief around Monga is that, handled correctly, he could be pushing hard for serious minutes before he turns 18.
There were bumps last season. Holland notes a “drop in expected minutes” and admits “there were some doubts over his attitude.” The kind of whispers that often swirl when a gifted teenager’s trajectory stalls.
But he pushes back on the idea that this is a problem player.
“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,” Holland said.
What he did show, when unleashed late in the 2024/25 Premier League campaign, was startling.
“When he came into the first team at the end of the 2024/25 Premier League season, he was turning defenders inside out, and it genuinely felt like City had a generational talent.”
That is the feeling Arsenal are trying to buy.
The price of relegation
The numbers being discussed are striking for someone who cannot yet sign a professional deal in some countries. Suggestions put the fee between £10million and £15million, with the possibility of a tribunal if the final structure of the move demands it.
For a League One club, that kind of money speaks loudly.
Leicester’s relegation has changed everything. Twelve months ago, Holland says, the idea of Monga leaving for that figure “seemed unrealistic.” Leicester were still talking about building around him. Now they are calculating what they can afford to refuse.
“I’m split on this. £10m-£15m is a decent fee for a 16-year-old,” Holland admitted. “Even more so when you consider he’s only played 37 times at senior level.
“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.
“As a third-tier outfit, City can’t turn their nose up at that sort of fee.”
That is the brutal economy of English football. Drop a division, and your brightest talents become lifelines.
Arsenal’s gamble – or opportunity?
From Arsenal’s side, this is exactly the sort of move a club with title ambitions and a long-term project should be making. They have already shown with Dowman and others that Arteta will trust teenagers if they meet his demands off the ball and on it.
Monga would not arrive as a saviour. He would arrive as a bet. On flair. On fearlessness. On the idea that the player who treated Premier League defenders like training cones at 16 can be sculpted into a weapon in a title-chasing squad.
Leicester, dragged into League One, are in no position to dictate too much. Arsenal, with money, a pathway, and a clear need on the left, are circling.
If they move decisively, this could be the moment they secure the left-sided star their next era will grow with, not against.
