Gary Lineker claims Mikel Arteta is “playing a Sir Alex [Ferguson] role” in a bid to gain an advantage for Arsenal in their bid to win the Premier League title.

The Gunners are nine points clear at the top of the tablewith seven games to play but second-placed Manchester City have a game in hand and will have been boosted by their victory over Mikel Arteta’s side in the Carabao Cup final before the international break.

The majority of the Arsenal players will now be licking their wounds back home as Martin Zubimendi and Piero Hincapie became the latest in a group of 10 players to have pulled out of their international squads through injury.

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But Lineker reckons there’s skullduggery at play and suggests a fair few will be back fit in time for Arsenal’s FA Cup clash with Southampton on Saturday.

“Interestingly a couple of Arsenal players have pulled out of this squad now. Both [Bukayo] Saka and Declan Rice have gone,” Lineker told his The Rest is Football podcast.

“They joined people like [William] Saliba and Gabriel [Magalhaes] and one or two other players. I think Arteta is playing a Sir Alex role here.”

Ferguson was frequently said to have piled pressure on his Manchester United players to miss friendlies for their countries.

“All managers have done that but generally it’s down to the players,” Lineker added.

“The manager would always pressure you to pull out of friendlies in particular. It happened to me a couple of times and on both occasions I said no chance.”

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Fellow pundit Alan Shearer understands the stance of Arteta and his players.

He said: “It’s not surprising, it happens and it goes on. You’ve got to look at it from his point of view, the club’s point of view. I guess they’re looking at it and trying to make history.

“That’s fine and you’ve got the right to do that as a player.

“They are both friendlies and if there are two that are pretty much guaranteed a place in the squad as Rice and Saka are, Madueke has pulled out as well with injury.”

Providing an update on Saka and Rice, manager Thomas Tuchel looked to “set the narrative straight”.

Tuchel said: “They had a medical assessment and wanted desperately to play. Let’s get the narrative straight, they wanted desperately to be involved. But it made no sense to take this risk.

“If it would have been the last game of the season then maybe we would have kept them and tried everything, but at this moment of the season it did not make sense.

“The risk for making it worse was just way too big. They were both in discomfort, clear discomfort, so it make absolutely no sense that they stayed.”