Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said Leicester City's dream this season is good for football "all over the world".
Leicester surprisingly top of the Premier League table after 16 games and hold a two-point advantage over Arsenal.
The league leaders have only lost once this season - a 5-2 defeat at the hands of Wenger's men in September.
And Wenger believes their spectacular run is good for world football.
"Of course it is good for English football," he said. "Not only for English football, it’s good for everybody in football all over the world to see teams who are not on the biggest budget at the start, that they can compete as well.
"There's always a way to be successful when you're intelligent and competent. Of course that’s very positive and they've shown another fantastic performance on Monday night.
"I always took them seriously as title contenders but when we won 5-2 over there, nobody took our performance seriously.
"They just thought it was normal that we won at Leicester, but ever since you have been able to see that it was a great result and a great performance on the day."
Arsenal face third-placed Manchester City on Monday but Wenger downplayed its importance in the title race.
"No, we are in December, we are not fighting for the Premier League on Monday night," he said.
"What you look at is of course to nullify the individual quality they have offensively, that will be vital for us to find a good balance between defending well as a team and expressing our way to go forward. But you cannot ignore the individual quality they have up front.
"If we win, it will boost our chances of course to go to the top. It is a massive game and when you play at home you want to win because we ambitious and we feel over Christmas we play many home games and our strength and we have the chance to come out in a strong position after Christmas.
"It will be a very tight game because if you look at the numbers since the start of the season, offensively and defensively the numbers are very close."
