Gary Lineker and Micah Richards rave about ‘immense’ Arsenal player after yesterday’s win

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Arsenal defender William Saliba had one of the best games of his Arsenal career against Manchester City yesterday.

Speaking on The Rest Is Football Podcast, Micah Richards and Gary Lineker were raving about the French international.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was looking to finally beat his mentor Pep Guardiola in the Premier League.

Their record against the Premier League champions isn’t great, but yesterday was a welcome win in what could be a hugely important game at the top of the table.

Manchester City came into the match in surprisingly poor form, losing in back-to-back domestic games.

Guardiola was still missing Rodri and Kevin de Bruyne but the quality of Man City’s squad shouldn’t have made that a problem.

However, Man City came up against a defensive pairing of William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes who were in sensational form for Arsenal.

Keeping Erling Haaland quiet is no easy task but you would have been forgiven for forgetting he was even playing yesterday.

It’s credit to the £27m Frenchman that the league’s best striker failed to even test David Raya.

Saliba stars for Arsenal vs Man City

Speaking about the young defender, Micah Richards said: “I just want to talk about [William] Saliba as well.”

Gary Lineker replied: “Oh he’s a great defender, isn’t he?” and Richards added: “He has just been immense.

“And remember last season when they lost him for the latter part of the season and they sort of wasn’t right.

“He’s started the season so well, [Erling] Haaland didn’t have a sniff.

“I know we did the whole thing with the Ballon Dawson didn’t give him a sniff when he played Wolves but again he had no opportunities and it looks like he’s a bit frustrated but I have to give credit to Saliba and Gabriel [Magalhaes] at the back.”

Manchester City got their tactics wrong against Arsenal, failing to test their defenders out wide and making William Saliba’s life very easy.

Richards raved about the 22-year-old straight after the match and elaborated on his comments when speaking to Lineker.

He didn’t have his best game in the Champions League against Lens but responded brilliantly yesterday.

He’s now got the international break to get up to speed after withdrawing from the France squad with a toe injury.