Gary Lineker believes if Gareth Bale leaves Tottenham he should also leave England and suspects there may be no remedy to the ills of Fernando Torres, with the floundering striker facing the prospect of never returning to his best form.

Lineker was in Dublin yesterday for an appearance at a Walkers crisps sales conference and, speaking to Newstalk’s Oisin Langan, warned that Spurs will need to break in to the top four to keep hold of Gareth Bale, and most liklely need to do it this year- “I think they’ll need to be in the Champions League pretty sharpish to keep the likes of Bale”. If Bale does leave the North London club, however, Lineker would encourage him to leave the English game: “If he’s going to stay in England then why not stay at Tottenham? To move, for me, it would be much more interesting to go and play for Barcelona or Real Madrid and he’s one of the very, very few players that would get in their side.”

The Match of the Day presenter also said he believes Fernando Torres has lost his way, and may never find his once lethal form again. Lineker lamented the trajectory Torres’ form has taken- “he doesn’t look as sharp as he used to and he looks like he’s mentally down on himself. You can see it when he plays, you can see it in his manner, you can see it in his face.”

Many believe reuniting with Rafael Benitez at Chelsea could be the Spanish striker’s last chance to return to his previous levels of performance, but Lineker isn’t positive of a rekindling of the lethal goal scoring last seen when Torres played for Liverpool, “He got injured two or three years ago and since then seems to have lost his way. I hope it comes back, I rather suspect it might not to quite the levels it was.”

Listen to the full interview below, during which Lineker talks more about Torres and Bale as well as his life as a pundit, why he would prefer to play his football in the modern game and which player in the Premier League most reminds him of himself.