Arsenal Target Jeremy Monga: The Next Big Winger

Arsenal have spent the last few years building one of the most exciting crops of young talent in Europe. Now they are closing in on a winger who could give that project a new edge down the left: Leicester City’s Jeremy Monga.

He is 16. He already looks like he belongs.

Monga broke through at Leicester in the 2024/25 Premier League season, then became a regular in a bruising Championship campaign that ended in relegation. While the club slid towards League One, the teenager’s reputation moved the other way.

Arsenal have taken notice.

A gap on the left – and a kid who plays like he’s in the park

Mikel Arteta’s squad is rich in precocious talent. Max Dowman, Marli Salmon, Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly have all felt the weight of the shirt and handled it. The pathway is real and visible at London Colney.

But look closely at the depth chart and one thing jumps out: the left flank of the future is not as clearly defined.

Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard face uncertain futures. Behind them, the conveyor belt is not stacked with natural left-sided stars. That is where Monga fits, and why Arsenal are pushing.

Leicester City correspondent Josh Holland, who has watched Monga closely for LeicestershireLive and the Leicester Mercury, paints a vivid picture of what Arsenal would be buying.

“Monga plays football at a professional standard, like he is playing in the street,” Holland told football.london. A teenager with the swagger of a kid on the cage pitch, but the execution of a senior pro. “A remarkable ball-carrier who is obsessed with beating his man and driving forward.”

This is not a winger who hides or recycles the ball. He wants the duel. He wants the damage.

High and wide, then chaos

Holland’s description of Monga’s role will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Arteta’s use of wide players.

“His best position has been off the left, with him taking high/wide positions to collect the ball by the touch line and then drive inwards,” Holland explained. Monga stretches the game, receives on the chalk, then slices into central areas. Strong off both feet, explosive in tight spaces, he carries a constant threat.

“He’s strong on both feet and has incredible agility,” Holland added. For a 16-year-old, that balance between physicality and technique is rare.

Leicester, in Holland’s view, never truly leaned into that threat in the Championship. “Leicester didn’t use him anywhere near as much as they should have last season in the Championship,” he said. The club’s chaos, on and off the pitch, did not help. A talent like this needs structure; he got turbulence.

Yet the flashes were enough to fuel big comparisons. “They’re different players, but there are big similarities between Monga and Max Dowman,” Holland noted. That alone will prick Arsenal ears. Dowman has already shown he can step into an elite environment and look at home.

Not one for now – but very much one for Arsenal

For all the excitement, nobody inside the game is pretending Monga walks straight into Arteta’s starting XI. Holland is clear on that point.

Despite his emergence, “the likelihood of an immediate chance in the Arsenal team appears slim,” he said. Arsenal are actively looking for a senior wide player on the left to cover any major departure, with Morgan Rogers of Aston Villa identified as the main target.

Monga, by contrast, would be a long-term play – another elite prospect for a manager who has already proved he will trust youth when the moment is right. The minutes given to Dowman this season underline that. Arteta does not hand out opportunities as charity; he gives them when he believes they can be taken.

The sense around Monga is that, with patience, he will.

“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,” Holland recalled. That word – generational – is used sparingly by those who watch academy football for a living. It tells you how electric those early performances were.

Then came the dip. Leicester’s relegation battle, a drop in expected minutes, and whispers about attitude.

“His drop in expected minutes was a concern, and there were some doubts over his attitude,” Holland admitted. But he pushes back on the more dramatic readings of that story. “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 in public, not a problem case.

Holland’s verdict on his Arsenal readiness is measured, but optimistic. “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.” It is a bold timeline, yet it speaks to how far ahead Monga already is for his age.

The price of potential – and the cost of relegation

For Leicester, the conversation is brutally simple. They are now a League One club. That changes everything.

Arsenal are expected to have to pay between £10 million and £15 million for Monga, with a tribunal still a possibility depending on how the deal is structured. In normal circumstances, that sort of fee for a 16-year-old with 37 senior appearances would feel like a huge swing.

“I’m split on this. £10m-£15m is a decent fee for a 16-year-old,” Holland said. “Even more so when you consider he’s only played 37 times at senior level.”

Then he adds the line that cuts to the heart of Leicester’s predicament.

“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.”

A year ago, Monga looked like the kind of jewel you build around, not cash in. Now, the financial reality of third-tier football bites hard. “As a third-tier outfit, City can’t turn their nose up at that sort of fee,” Holland admitted.

For Arsenal, this is the market opportunity: a Premier League-level prospect available at a price that would be unthinkable if Leicester had stayed up and stabilised.

For Leicester, it is the cost of collapse.

A winger for the next Arsenal

Strip it back and the logic for Arsenal is clear. They want a senior left-sided wide player now. They also need to ensure that, when Martinelli and Trossard move on or age out, the next wave is already in the building.

Monga ticks that box. High and wide. Brave on the ball. Street footballer’s mentality with a professional’s platform. The kind of winger who makes defenders nervous before he has even received the pass.

He will not solve Arsenal’s immediate questions on the flank. He may not even be seen much at the Emirates for another season.

But if the club are serious about staying ahead of the curve, these are the battles they have to win: the 16-year-old who looks like he might be worth far more than £15 million in three years’ time.

Leicester’s loss could yet become one of the defining signings of Arsenal’s next era.