Balogun and Pepi: Premier League Futures Ahead of World Cup
Folarin Balogun and Ricardo Pepi are heading into the biggest summer of their careers with goals in their boots and England on alert.
One came through Arsenal’s academy and fought for a pathway. The other crossed the Atlantic as a teenager to gamble on Europe. Now both could be on the verge of a Premier League move just as a home World Cup looms into view.
Balogun: Arsenal graduate turned Monaco spearhead
Born in New York but raised in London’s footballing furnace, Balogun never quite broke through at Arsenal. Ten competitive appearances, two goals in the Europa League, flashes of promise rather than a permanent place.
The real statement came in France. A ruthless 22-goal loan spell at Reims forced Europe to take notice and persuaded Monaco to drop around €40 million on him in 2023. That price tag can weigh on a young striker. Balogun wore it.
His latest campaign in the principality has been his most complete yet: 19 goals in all competitions, a forward who now looks like he belongs at the sharp end of a major European league. He presses, he runs channels, he plays on the shoulder. And crucially, he finishes.
That body of work has changed the conversation. He’s no longer the academy prospect Arsenal couldn’t quite fit in. He’s a proven top-flight scorer, and the sort of player Premier League clubs start to circle when they want guaranteed penalty-box threat.
Pepi: Title winner still climbing
Pepi’s route has been different, more jagged, but no less impressive.
He landed in Europe at Augsburg in January 2022, a raw talent with upside rather than a ready-made star. The adaptation was not instant. It rarely is. But he kept moving, kept learning, and his rise at PSV has been sharp.
Another Eredivisie title is on his CV, and he matched Balogun’s 19-goal return across competitions this season. He has not always been the first name on the team sheet in Eindhoven, yet he has grown into a striker who understands the European game, its tempo, its physicality, its demands.
He’s still only at the start of what he can be. That’s precisely what makes him so interesting to recruiters.
Friedel’s verdict: Two Premier League profiles, one different ceiling
Brad Friedel has seen enough of English football, and enough of American talent, to know what travels. The former USMNT goalkeeper believes both Balogun and Pepi can handle the Premier League – with one important distinction.
“Both of them could play in England for sure, depending on the size of the club,” he said, speaking to GOAL in association with MrQ.
For Pepi, Friedel sees a natural fit slightly lower down the food chain, at ambitious but less pressurised clubs.
“I think someone like Pepi would need to be one of the mid to lower teams. Something like Brentford, Bournemouth, Fulham,” he explained. Not because those clubs lack quality, but because the expectation and glare are different. A Manchester United or Arsenal move, in Friedel’s view, “would be too much for him, too quick.”
Balogun, though, he places in a different bracket.
“With Balogun, I think Balogun could play at one of the big boys and deal with the perception and reality situation, because I think he would be deemed more of a seasoned player – not being disrespectful of Pepi, it’s just his history in Europe.”
That history matters. Balogun has already shouldered the responsibility of leading the line in a top-five league. Friedel sees a player ready to absorb the noise that comes with a heavyweight Premier League move.
Fulham, Jiménez… and echoes of McBride and Dempsey
Pepi has already been linked with Fulham, and Friedel likes that idea. Not just in theory, but in the details.
He draws a direct line between Pepi and Raul Jiménez, the Mexican forward who has led the line at Craven Cottage.
“If you look at that, you see Raul Jiménez and his style and Pepi’s, they’re very similar. I think that would actually be a seamless transition,” Friedel said.
From there, he reached back into Fulham’s American lineage: Brian McBride and Clint Dempsey. Different players, different strengths, but a shared instinct for the box and a shared comfort in the Premier League’s chaos.
“It’s almost like how Fulham had McBride going and Dempsey coming in,” Friedel recalled. McBride dominated in the air, Dempsey more on the deck, yet both could do a bit of everything. He sees the same kind of stylistic overlap between Pepi and Jiménez – enough similarity to ease the transition, enough difference to offer something new.
The broader point is clear: Pepi already resembles a Premier League striker in movement and mentality. The right club could unlock him quickly.
“I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Balogun or Pepi in England next season,” Friedel added. “And I think they could both be successful in the Premier League.”
Pochettino’s call: Balogun to start, Pepi to strike late?
Before any agents start booking flights to London, Manchester or anywhere else, there is a World Cup to navigate on home soil. That changes the stakes. Every club performance feeds into a bigger picture.
Mauricio Pochettino, tasked with steering the USMNT through the 2026 tournament, may have the luxury of choosing between two in-form centre-forwards. Friedel knows which way he would lean if he were in that dugout.
“Balogun would be my pick,” he said. The reason goes beyond goals. It’s about fit.
“If you look historically at Pochettino’s teams, he usually likes to have players who play very vertically and who are really dynamic, and that’s more of what Balogun is.”
Vertical running, aggressive pressing, constant movement in behind – Balogun ticks those boxes. He stretches defences and drags back lines into uncomfortable places, exactly the sort of profile Pochettino has built his best sides around.
Pepi, in this scenario, becomes the change of angle, the late-game weapon.
“And then to have the option of Pepi, who again will work really hard, but is very good in the box, good in the air, to come off the bench,” Friedel said. When legs tire and crosses start to fly, a penalty-box specialist with his timing and heading becomes a different kind of problem.
The conditions could force rotation too. World Cup games in North America will be played in heat, with players coming off long club seasons. Friedel can see Pochettino shuffling his pack in the group phase, tailoring his approach to opponents such as Paraguay and Australia, and managing workloads for his forwards.
A warning called Turkiye
One fixture already jumps off the page for Friedel: Turkiye.
“Hopefully, they have points in the bag by the time they play Turkiye,” he said. It was less a throwaway line, more a warning.
“Because if they’re not careful by the time they get to Turkiye, and they have to win that match, Turkiye is a very talented possession-based team.”
In other words: arrive at that game under pressure and the margin for error shrinks. A side comfortable on the ball, happy to dictate tempo, can suffocate a team that chases the game. The US will want Balogun, Pepi, or both, playing from a position of strength by then, not desperation.
That is the tightrope both strikers now walk. Every goal at Monaco or PSV, every whisper of a Premier League move, feeds into a bigger narrative that will culminate under the lights in 2026.
By then, will Balogun be leading the line for one of England’s “big boys” and Pepi bullying centre-backs at a hungry mid-table club? Or will a different script emerge for the two forwards carrying a nation’s expectations into its own World Cup?
