Gary Lineker has suggested Leicester City’s title rivals Arsenal “nicked the wrong scout” after the man credited with helping to sign two of Claudio Ranieri’s star performers, Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kanté, left the Premier League leaders.

Ben Wrigglesworth announced this week on social media that he is joining Sunday’s opponents after more than three years at Leicester. The Leicester assistant manager, Steve Walsh, was also linked with a move to Arsenal in December but the former England striker and Match of the Day host Lineker, who says his boyhood club’s achievements so far this season have been “magical”, believes Walsh is the man who deserves most credit for recruitment at the club.

Asked to name his Premier League team of the season so far, Lineker said: “[Christian] Fuchs, for sure. Underrated, we got him on a free transfer. I love how Arsenal nicked the wrong scout. N’Golo Kanté, for sure, Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy. Four at least.

“Steve Walsh is the guy who found these players and bought them in,” he added. “I know when he found Mahrez he was sent to watch someone else and came back with Mahrez. He’s done a brilliant job and that’s been the large key to Leicester’s success. As in all clubs, it’s about the people you bring in and they’ve done it on a relatively small budget compared with the giants.”

Even Lineker, who describes himself as “a proper boyhood fan” who went home and away to watch his hometown team from the age of seven, could not have dreamed what has happened to Leicester over the last few months. Ranieri’s side go into Sunday’s match at the Emirates with a five-point lead over the chasing pack and as the new favourites to be crowned champions for the first time.

“I have watched it very closely, they have done it because they have good players,” said Lineker. “They have a wonderful spirit and a great dynamism and pace on the counterattack. The fact that so many players have found form at the same time, while so many of the big clubs have been inconsistent, all things considered. But it’s not a fluke because it has been almost a year.”

He added: “Right throughout the side, the two centre-backs are in many ways journeyman pros, good pros, but they have got that wonderful attitude and never-say-die spirit that has culminated in them being at the top of the league.”

Lineker remembers coming home from Wembley in tears after seeing Leicester lose 1-0 in the 1969 FA Cup final to Manchester City – the fourth time in 20 years that the club had finished as runners-up – so is certainly taking nothing for granted with 13 games still to play. But after promising on social media in December that he would present the first Match of the Day of next season in his underpants if they win the title, he is starting to get worried.

“I stupidly said that, yes. But at that stage I absolutely categorically knew that they weren’t going to win the league. The nation is in trouble …”

Vardy’s rags to riches story from Stocksbridge Park Steels to top scorer in the Premier League has attracted the attention of the Hollywood producer Adrian Butchart. Yet even though he had already scored 29 goals for his country by Vardy’s age, Lineker sees no reason why Leicester’s current leading man cannot translate that form to the international stage.

“I was about pace and I didn’t peak until I was mid to late 20s, so I can relate to that,” Lineker, who was speaking ahead of the return of the Champions League on BT Sport, said. “I wasn’t a regular in Leicester team until I was 21 or 22. I didn’t break into the England squad until I was 24 or 25. He is a little bit later than that but he’s just kept improving and that is the key.

“He thinks about his game a lot, he works really hard and he has exhilarating pace. He has good touch as well. His finishing has improved a lot, which was the one part of his game a couple of years ago you’d have said was his weakness but he has improved a lot and has finished consistently this season.”

With a 12-point lead over fifth-placed Manchester United, it seems inconceivable that Leicester will not at least qualify for next season’s Champions League. Lineker does not hold out too much hope for any of England’s three representatives going all the way in this year’s competition, tipping Barcelona to finally end the sequence that has seen the holders fail to retain their title ever since the new format was introduced in 1992.

As for whether Vardy, Mahrez and co will be lured away at the end of the season, that can wait. “I was just pleased that they managed to keep the whole squad together in the January window,” he said. “I’m not worried about any danger in the summer – if they win the league, that’ll do. They could not even exist again after that and it wouldn’t matter! It’s just magical what’s happened.

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