Gary Lineker says £60m star should ‘take Arsenal team talks’ instead of Mikel Arteta | Football

Gary Lineker has named the key player for Arsenal as they look to clinch the Premier League title and win the Champions League.

Mikel Arteta’s side returned to the top of the Premier League with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Newcastle United on Saturday.

The Gunners were the heavy favourites to win the title just a few weeks ago but back-to-back defeats, the second against title title rivals Manchester City, blew the race wide open.

A clash with Eddie Howe’s Newcastle could have been another banana skin for Arsenal but they clinched an important victory thanks to Eberechi Eze’s early goal.

England legend Lineker was impressed by not only Eze’s contribution against Newcastle but also his post-match interview in which he said he was ‘loving’ being part of a title-chasing team.

Lineker says Arsenal ‘need more players like Eze’ given the nervousness in the squad and suggested he should ‘take the team talks’ instead of Arteta during the run-in.

‘You have to give Eberechi Eze a lot of credit because that was a gorgeous finish,’ Lineker said on The Rest is Football podcast. ‘I saw his post-match interview and he’s so relaxed.

‘And you just think to yourself, maybe put him in charge of this! In that interview he just said, “no, I’m not nervous, I just love playing football, it’s great and I want to be in this position”.

‘That is absolutely the right attitude. It’s obviously easy to speak like that when you’ve just bent one into the top corner and scored a hugely important goal.

‘But I see it like that, that’s how it should be for these players. I still think Arsenal look so edgy, they need more players like Eberechi Eze.

‘I said early on in the game that the one person who looks really relaxed at the moment is Eze.

‘I think his interviews after the game, so relaxed, so calm, and he exudes confidence and he’s just said, “this is beautiful and this is what we want”.

‘I loved that, I thought it was such a great interview. Maybe he should take the team talks over the next few weeks…’

Newcastle legend Alan Shearer also noticed Arsenal’s ‘nerves’ in Saturday’s game and claimed Arteta’s side were ‘there for the taking’.

‘If only the rest of his teammates felt like that because there’s no way they’re feeling as relaxed as he is because they were there for the taking, Shearer said.

‘Newcastle should have got something out of that game. Arsenal were there for the taking.

‘Strangely, I watched the Arsenal game last week against Man City and I watched the Arsenal game against Newcastle and I was more hopeful of them winning the league after losing last week than I was after watching them win on Saturday.

‘Just because of how nervy and edgy they were against Newcastle, a team that were in rotten form.

‘But they’ve won the game and that’s the most important thing. That’s what they have to do somehow from now until the end of the season.

‘They’re in there fighting and they’re in there winning. And that’s the most important thing from an Arsenal point of view.

‘But they do look very, very nervous. They were there for the taking for Newcastle and Newcastle weren’t able to do it.’

Arsenal’s attentions now turn to the first leg of their Champions League semi-final tie against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night.

European champions PSG face German giants Bayern Munich in the other semi-final.

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