Rice<\/a> was influential once again as he provided the assist for Jurrien Timber’s winner while also stopping multiple Chelsea<\/a> attacks.<\/p>\n So far in the 25\/26 season, Rice has recorded four goals and 11 assists in 39 matches across all competitions.<\/p>\n Many feel that if Arsenal<\/a> manage to win the Premier League<\/a>, Rice would be named Player of the Season.<\/p>\n However, speaking recently on The Rest Is Football podcast, Lineker<\/a> picked out Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes as someone who deserves the accolade<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lineker said: “When Bruno Fernandes gets a grip of that game\u2026 You talk about spaces, and where he goes, he\u2019s so clever. When he crosses, he goes sort of inside-left channel. He doesn\u2019t just go in the middle, he sees where everyone is, he always uses his full-back or his winger and then they play back to him where he\u2019s got that time to cross.<\/p>\n “If you actually look at his positioning, he\u2019s always scanning about, where the best places are to be, where he can affect the game.”<\/p>\n He continued: “You see him on the left wing, you see him on the right wing\u2026 what a brain! I think he\u2019s the player of the season for me. I know they\u2019ll probably give it to someone that\u2019s going to win something.”<\/p>\n At this point, Lineker stated that Rice could win if Arsenal become champions, while also mentioning Erling Haaland if he inspires Manchester City to the title.<\/p>\n Lineker added: “For me, it\u2019s probably him or maybe Declan Rice if Arsenal go on and manage to clinch the title. I suppose the only other one, if he came back and started banging in all the goals and won City the title, it might be Erling Haaland again.<\/p>\n “But at the moment, for me, to do what he\u2019s (Bruno Fernandes) done this season\u2026 and he was still the standout player even when they were going through a rotten spell when they were really struggling under Ruben Amorim. I think he\u2019s got such a great footballing brain and technique. What a player, what a player!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England and Barcelona star Gary Lineker overlooked Declan Rice when picking out his Premier League Player of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[220,12332,218,2855,221,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-454606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-arsenal","tag-declan-rice","tag-football","tag-gary-lineker","tag-premier-league","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Bruno](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/aHR0cHM6Ly9ldS1pbWFnZXMuY29udGVudHN0YWNrLmNvbS92My9hc3NldHMvYmx0YTkwZDA1YWQ0MWE1NGE3MS9ibHRmOGU3OGU0.webp\"\/)
Bruno Fernandes has been in fine form for Manchester United. Image: Getty<\/p>\n