The Champions League continues on Wednesday night with Manchester City travelling to Monaco in the second match of the competition this season.
City will go into the encounter as the favourites, but they will come up against plenty of familiar faces at Stade Louis II.
And that is because a lot of Monaco’s side include men who played in the Premier League before.
Paul Pogba is the standout name from that list but he won’t feature against City, something that will be expanded upon later.
So, who does make the list?
Daily Mail Sport takes a look at the Ligue 1 outfit’s squad…
Monaco have a squad full of ex-Premier League talent ahead of the visit of Manchester City
Folarin Balogun
One of two former Arsenal academy stars in this list, Balogun’s time in the Premier League was short.
Despite coming through the ranks at the Gunners, Balogun only made two substitute appearances for the club in the 2021-22 season, playing a combined 70 minutes.
Those matches came in the opening two games of that season and didn’t feature in any other first-team squad for a Premier League match afterwards, before joining Middlesbrough on loan in January 2022.
In the summer of 2022 he crossed the English channel to play for Stade de Reims on loan, where he scored 22 goals in 39 appearances in all competitions for the club.
That form earned him a permanent move to Monaco in 2023-24, where he has remained since.
Folarin Balogun started his career at Arsenal but has been at Monaco since joining in 2023-24
Eric Dier
The most high-profile name to Premier League audiences on this list that will likely start for Monaco, is unequivocally Dier.
Dier played for Tottenham Hotspur across 10 seasons and was a key part of their renaissance as a club under Mauricio Pochettino.
His form as primarily a central midfielder saw him earn England recognition quickly and he was part of their Euro 2016 squad which ended in an embarrassing 1-0 defeat by Iceland in the last 16. However, two years later he was integral to new boss Gareth Southgate’s side as they reached the World Cup semi-finals.
After limited playing time under Ange Postecoglou at Tottenham he joined Bayern Munich on loan in January 2024 which included the option for a one-year permanent contract at the end. Bayern activated that and his 18-month stay in Germany saw him the Bundesliga title last season.
Now at Monaco after joining on a free transfer in July, playing at the heart of a back-three defence.
Eric Dier spent 10 terms at Tottenham but is now at the heart of Monaco’s back-three defence
Ansu Fati
If all the talk at Barcelona is of Lamine Yamal now, then before him Fati was the precocious talent seen as the man to succeed Lionel Messi – so much so that even inherited his No 10 shirt.
However, after a bright start to life at Barca, injuries ravaged his development and he was sent out to Brighton and Hove Albion on a season-long loan on September 1, 2023.
Fati made 27 appearances for the Seagulls in all competitions in 2023-24, scoring four goals in that time. He also helped the club make history by scoring in a 2-0 win over Ajax in the Europa League – their first-ever victory in European competition.
He returned to Barcelona last term but is now back out on loan at Monaco, with the French club having an option to buy at the end of that.
Ansu Fati spent a season on loan at Brighton from Barcelona but is now rebuilding his career
Thilo Kehrer
Manchester City will hope Kehrer endures an outing like his last match for Monaco, where the captain was sent off after 38 minutes in a 3-1 defeat at Lorient on Saturday.
That was the turning point in the match as the scoreline was 0-0 but two minutes later Lorient took the lead and never looked back.
Kehrer only spent 18 months in the Premier League before his move to Monaco, with that time spent at West Ham.
His first season in 2022-23 ended in silverware as the Hammers won the Europa Conference League but after playing a bit-part role in 2023-24, he joined Monaco on loan in January before completing a permanent move that summer.
Thilo Kehrer spent 18 months at West Ham before joining Monaco where he is now the captain
Takumi Minamino
The sole Premier League winner on this list, Minamino’s debut campaign in England was a chaotic one as Liverpool finished top in a season that was disrupted by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Having joined in January 2020, he went on to make 14 appearances in all competitions for the club that season but a year later he was sent out on loan to Southampton for the remainder of the 2020-21 campaign.
Upon his return to Liverpool in 2021-22, he helped the club win the League Cup and reach a Champions League final – where they lost to perennial winners Real Madrid.
That summer he joined Monaco and has made over 100 appearances for the club.
Takumi Minamino won a Premier League and League Cup with Liverpool before joining Monaco
Mohammed Salisu
This isn’t the first time that Minamino and Salisu have been team-mates with the pair sharing a dressing room at Southampton.
While Minamino was only on the south coast for a short period of time, Salisu was there for three seasons.
It took him six months to make his debut for the club (February 11, 2021) but he truly found his feet in his second season, when Minamino was there, making 37 appearances in all competitions for the Saints.
His final season at Southampton, which saw them relegated, yielded 28 outings for the team before joining Monaco that summer on a five-year deal.
Mohammed Salisu was an ex-team-mate of Minamino’s at Southampton and are now reunited
Denis Zakaria
Such has been Chelsea’s plethora of signings in recent years, that you can easily forget that Zakaria was once on their books.
Zakaria’s spell at Chelsea came in the 2022-23 campaign, joining on loan from Juventus.
He had a debut to savour for the Blues, scoring the winner in a Champions League group-stage encounter against Dinamo Zagreb in November.
That was about as good as it got for the midfielder who only made a further 10 appearances in all competitions before returning back to Juve at the end of the season and then joining Monaco.
Denis Zakaria has found a home at Monaco after a frustrating loan spell at Chelsea in 2022-23
PS…
Mika Biereth
The second former Arsenal starlet on this list was Monaco’s main source of goals last season, scoring 13 times in 16 Ligue 1 matches.
Born in London to a Danish-German father and a Bosnian Serb mother, Biereth initially came through the ranks at Fulham before signing his first professional contract with Arsenal in July 2021.
He appeared four times as an unused substitute for Arsenal’s first-team during the 2021–22 season and subsequently spent loan spells out at RKC Waalwijk, Motherwell and Sturm Graz after that to aid his development.
His loan to Sturm Graz became permanent ahead of last season but after scoring 11 goals in 16 league games he earned a move to Monaco in January.
Mika Biereth never played a first-team game for Arsenal but is now thriving at Monaco
Paul Pogba
Pogba has been a thorn in City’s side in the past for their bitter rivals Manchester United and there will be some relief he won’t feature on Wednesday against them.
The most notable Pogba performance came in a comeback 3-2 win for United at the Etihad Stadium in April 2018 where his brace helped them postpone City impending title celebrations.
That was during his second spell at the Red Devils, where he won the Europa League and League in 2016-17 but nothing else in the following five seasons.
Just like his first time at Old Trafford, he left United on a free for Juventus in 2022 – but his return to Italy was a nightmare period for events on-and-off the pitch – which included injuries and a doping ban.
Paul Pogba has tormented City in the past for Man United, but won’t play on Wednesday
It’s been over two years since Pogba has played a football match. That came for Juve in September 2023 before he was hit with the doping ban. After having his suspension cut from four years to 18 months in October 2024, and agreeing to leave Juventus, he signed for Monaco on a free transfer this summer.
The 32-year-old has been training regularly with his team-mates since July, but has not yet been considered match fit.
However, speaking ahead of Wednesday’s clash with City, Monaco manager Adi Hutter revealed that he could make his debut after the international break this month away at Angers on October 18.
‘We maybe expected him to be in the squad against Nice, but we may need to wait until Angers… we hope that, after the international break, he can play.’
