According to various reports in Turkey, Fenerbahce are keen on signing Cedric Soares this summer.
The recommendation comes from new Portuguese coach Vitor Pereira who sees his countryman as a financially viable target to play on the right side of both a 4-4-2 and 3-4-3 system.
It’s said that Mesut Ozil’s club will aim to recruit Cedric on loan for the year with an option to buy next summer.
The 29-year-old signed for Arsenal on a free transfer last summer having initially joined on loan from Southampton in January 2019. He’s under contract until 2024.
The full-back, a Euro 2016 winner with his country, has since made 29 appearances for the Gunners, scoring once and providing two assists.
Having initially provided backup to Hector Bellerin, the Portuguese slipped down the pecking order towards the end of last season when Calum Chambers impressed in the position.
Even though the Gunners are weighing up a Bellerin departure, Mikel Arteta also has Ainsley Maitland-Niles who can play at right-back.
While Football.London reported earlier this week that Cedric is in contention to start the first game of the season at Brentford, we’d be surprised if the club is planning on using him much this season.
Over to you, Kia…
Send him off, get another in and convince Maitland-Niles he has a future here… oh and Good luck 😀 COYG
AMN seems to want to play midfield though – not right back. So it’s not about convincing him he has a future so much as convincing him he needs to give up his dream of being a midfielder.
To be honest, AMN said he was willing to play wherever the manager wants him to.
In addition, Allardyce said he kind of understands why he wasn’t playing in midfield at Arsenal due to competition. This means he doesn’t see him as a world’beater in the position.
He has said that – but then he went on loan specifically for the chance to play midfield. He’s a great & versatile squad player but it’s not clear he’s good enough to start for us anywhere. His best performances weren’t actually at right back but at right wingback where he could be much more attacking in nature. However we aren’t going to play a back 5 which means the weaker part of his game (defending & passing) will be exposed. Ditto in the center of the pitch.
Maybe I’m the only one but I’m kind of confused as to what happened to Cedric. We signed an average to good player. Arteta must’ve known this. And we got average to good performances. I never remember him being awful. And there were a couple of decent games, one of which was from the left. And now it’s like he’s toxic waste. We’ll probably pay him off. Or subsidise his wages. Arteta played Saka at RB and Xhaka at LB instead of him. When did he let Arteta down so badly? And, more importantly, what did Arteta think he was… Read more »
Completely agreed! I don’t understand all the gate for Cedric. My feeling is there’s a general feeling we got done over by his agent and the length of his deal and that bitterness doesn’t let people view him for what he is.
Just us Arsenal fans being Arsenal fans.
I don’t understand the gate for Cedric either. It’s as if there’s a barrier between him and the fans.
I think he’s viewed as a waste of money & many seem to view him as replacing AMN (he’s not really as AMN wants to be a midfielder). I love Blogs but he’s also spent a lot of time complaining about Kia so there’s also a natural distrust on here for anyone who has Kia as an agent.
I think you’ve made an open and shut case for the gate.
The gate is now closed.
What if someone wears 5 hats?
I think you might be the first person who got the reference. Spect!
🤘🍻
i’ve never known if it was Mighty Boosh or Nathan Barley
Two of his misplaced back passes led to goals in two different games. Arsenal lost by one goal in both of those games.
He needs to go. Fact.
…should be “he needs to go. Point of view.”
Sure, but Ceballos also had performances where he almost singlehandedly lost us games and he wasn’t frozen out like Cedric.
Arteta’s approach to benching players seems very scattershot and inconsistent – other than that he’ll consistently give his favorites second* chances and freeze out others for the same mistake – or for seemingly no reason, especially if they’re young (Nelson, Nketiah, Saliba, Maitland-Niles).
* and third, fourth…
I think the issue most have is that we signed him at all, not so much what he has done since we signed him.
Sure, but he’s specifically talking about Arteta, who presumably had a say in signing him and has seemingly only now realized what level of player he is.
It could actually turn out to be pretty good business. He was here as a break glass in case of emergency kind of player on a free. The emergency never really happened and he could go on loan and maybe a small fee to defray some of the cost. And was also decent as you said. People lump Cedric in with bad transfers and it still blows my mind. He’s not even old!
Agree. I remember lots of praise for a couple of early performances, where people seemed to think he was better than Bellerin. He wasn’t, but he was not bad at all. I thought he was quite poor on the left (which forced the shift to Xhaka), but that was never the reason he was brought in. At the end (can’t remember which matches), he made some fairly serious defensive errors and didn’t follow attacking wingers, and I think that’s where Arteta soured on him.
Totally agree with you. Surely he’s more use to us here than going out on loan.
We shouldn’t signed him. Surplus to requirement signed for 4yrs because he’s managed by Kia Joorabchan
“What shall I do? I feel like my wife and me are drifting apart”.
Havyn – “You shouldn’t have married her”.
I agree with Havyn.
Ainsley had a bit of dip in form but was still available for selection. Bellerin was coming back from his hamstring injury and we signed Cedric anyway. Cedric was already surplus to requirements as Southampton. Cedric then couldn’t play because he arrived injured. If it weren’t for the pandemic halting the season, he may have never even played during his loan back in 2019-20.
He seems like a nice man but the club didn’t need him at the time of his loan. His permanent signing is more debatable because of the contract length really.
If you can recall he’s been frozen out since a couple of diabolical performances when played at LB. Can’t say I rate him highly but agreed we’ve gotten average to good performances from him in his preferred position and unless you’re buying a backup as one for the future then a ceiling of reasonable performances are a fair expectation. Perhaps the penny dropped that buying him wasn’t the best investment.
Can’t remember who we were playing in the PL but Cedric had a very bad lack of defensive concentration, didn’t mark his man and they scored. He never played PL again. Might have been one of those things he and Arteta had spoken about repeatedly on the training ground. Arteta has his limits w players and. Cedric apparently reached his w the manager.
Why haven’t we bought a right-back? It’s a complete no-brainer that we need a quality player in that position. If Arteta thinks that Chambers should be our regular right-back then he’s deluded. This problem should have been addressed weeks ago.
I can see Bellerin and Cedric disappearing in this window and no cover available for Chambers.
We need to sell Bellerin first bruv
And why hasn’t that happened? OUR FIRST GAME OF THE SEASON IS JUST 16 DAYS AWAY! Why is it taking so long to sort the squad out? It looks like we’ll be buying players at midnight as the window shuts. And we still have lots of dross that needs to be got rid of.
What are we waiting for?!
Because no one has made an offer
Bellerin – Inter or nowhere Xhaka – Roma or nowhere Willock – Newcastle or nowhere Laca – Maybe Athletico or nowhere Torreira – ?? Willian – lol Leno – ?? Ainsley – Lots of interest but zero movement Nketiah – Same but less interest Nelson – Same but even less interest Kolasinac – lmao We have zero selling power because either only one club or zero clubs are interested in our players. Roma will get Xhaka for €15m if they stand firm. We know that. They know that. And look at the players we’re interested in. They all have lots… Read more »
Yeah I know, and I agree. It will be last minute chaos on most of those players. If we don’t sell Bellerin or Xhaka then we keep them, they’re good enough, but not ideal. Leno I think is here for this season. Laca, who knows? the rest……chaos ! It will be better….chill x
I think you are ignoring what has happened to the finances of every club, including big clubs, because of covid. England is a partial exception, but lots of Italian or Spanish clubs that would want someone like Xhaka are busy selling rather than buying. Inter won the title and are semi-dismantling. Barca literally cannot resign Messi (a new player, because his contract was allowed to expire) until they sell. Madrid lowers their payroll by selling Varane (and, I hope, Odegaard). Nothing is normal.
Of course you’re right. It’s made it even harder to shift hard to shift footballers. I think the loan with a definite purchase deals are our best bets. At least we can balance the books next summer and hopefully still have that money to spend this summer. But your point does beg the question – Why aren’t we making the most of this buyers market? None of the players we are looking at are what you would call bargains. Where’s the sort of move we made for Santi when Malaga were cash strapped? We should be able to pick up… Read more »
Don’t think one can underestimate the ripple effect of the traditional huge spenders being broke: Barca; Real; to a lesser extent PSG (and all the Italian ‘giants’) haven’t pumped the usual cash into the market – which means the smaller guys who may have sold on some good ‘nuggets’, also don’t have the usual slice of that slush fund. So they in turn ain’t buying… it’s a general drought all round.
With you all the way up nto ‘not ever get up’, Brother of the Quat’Chapeaux.
C’mon man – we are the Arse… we WILL fire again!
Uh, maybe no one wants to buy the players we want to sell for the price we want to sell them at. It could be that.
Buyers.
I thought that was simple enough to realise.
Everyone is waiting for everyone else in the market. A lot of stuff won’t be done by the opening day of the season, most likely the majority of deals will happen in the weeks after that.
I think we probably do want to sign a RB, but we have 4 and have to get rid of some first, also it’s probably the least worrying position we are need of. CM and GK are much more pressing
Errmmm… buyers? And/or suckers, depending on which ‘dross’ and at what price.
We are fecked, unless Arteta goes back to dreaded 3-4-3 there is no way we can be a top team without top full back.
we wont play with fullbacks.
we will look to play with 2/3 mobile centrebacks and have 2 defensive wingers.
I’m looking forward to the day you’re the manager of AFC Fatgooner. It will truly be a golden age
Careful man, your blood pressure spiking isn’t good if you’re fat and overreacting to everything.
I like Cedric but Chelsea is getting Jules Kounde who plays CB and RB. I am sure they will use him in the RB position. This boy is as good in dribbling as Pepe. He can put in good crosses, can create a lot of goals.
What is our path to top four if stronger teams than us get stronger?
Does anyone on here really think we have a ‘Snowball in hell’ chance of top 4. There’s only city that haven’t improved their squad yet and they will surely do so.
Only if we upgrade properly. Not to complain about the new players but so far we haven’t.
Do they even need to?
You mean that team we beat home and away in one of our worst seasons…
With the overloading of young midfield/forward talent and dumping all the RBs it will be fascinating to see the new planned system of 3 5 2 – except the back line is LB, CB, CB, gaping hole.
Chill baby,,,,,it’s 4-2-3-1…..we’ll get a new RB if we can sell H.
We need to focus on 8 CM and 10, then see how the rest pans out in usual end of window chaos
Cash in. He’s ok but slow, so if we can get any money for him, let’s take it, but obviously only if we have a plan. If we sell Bellerin for good money, Cedric for any money then get, say, Aarons, we are winning. Chambers is solid as RB and the glorious, god like, Ben White can also play there if required so we’re covered ! x
Watch Calum step up magnifcently and become an absolute beast of a RB this season… you heard it here!
Guys let’s crowdfund a pint of beer and a few hugs for poor Edu who I’m sure is feeling exposed and alone
If Edu makes this happen – he is a genius !!! Cedric is OK, not as awful as some make out, but he is not going to take us back to the top 4.
The other RBs – Bellerin has probably reached his ceiling with us and needs a move to re-ignite his career, Chambers is a good solid back up for both RB and CB, AMN has potential to be No.1 RB but does he want it?
Who exactly has Chambers impressed in any position I’ll never know.
He was great at RB last season when called upon and can also play CB. Probably on cheap as fuck wages…..???? Obviously we need a first choice RB but he’s a solid back up and yet another player that has improved under Arteta, like Xhaka, Elneny, Holding & Mari.
This is exactly why I wished I’d grown another 2 thumbs… pointing down of course.
Utter piffle!
Hopefully we can start moving players that are surplus to requirements off the books soon. Lots of rumours in the press about departures as usual but not a single one yet. We’ve increased the squad by two so far and probably a third if/when White signs. I thought the aim was to trim the numbers not just for cost reasons but to give youngsters more of a chance. Of course there’s still time in this transfer window but we need to start doing it soon, don’t we?
All buying clubs will wait to get a better price mate…..let’s just try and get Xhaka sold first then get that piece of the jigsaw
True. The Xhaka “deal” is certainly important and it’s been on the cards for many weeks now. There are several other players that we really do need to shift as well though. Anyway, we’ll just thave to wait and see what happens.
Roma stalling.
Why am I not surprised….
GET IT DONE
Two units of Cedric and Bellerin out for one unit of a better RB sounds like a brilliant plan to me.
I’m watching him being terrible in the Watford game. It’d be great to offload him and Bellerin. Get someone in and have Chambers compete for RB. It’ll be a long transfer window
OOH OOH OOH C’MON AND DO LOKONGA !!💥💥💥 ….he looks superb
Just get rid of him.
“Good market opportunity” Those were the words used to describe the Cedric loan-purchase deal in the Ornstein/James from Gunnerblog Edu profile on the Athletic last year. It drove me up the wall then and it looks even worse in retrospect. I don’t want to criticize the two and I understand that Ornstein’s style isn’t really to question those in power, but if someone at the club tells you something which is clearly bullshit and you reprint it without comment, it’s not journalism, it’s free PR. The kicker was that the club hadn’t really planned on loaning him – it was… Read more »
It does feel condescending and a little like gas-lighting sometimes. It’s almost like as if we’re being told that because we are football fans, we are not capable of using foresight to spot a bad or unnecessary transfer.
I felt the same way about the Willian transfer as soon as the sports articles started appearing after the FA Cup final. It ended up being worse than I imagined and the players whose development I was worried it would impede, it did.
The right back position really is a curious one. We have who has plateaued and seemingly wants to go, one who doesn’t want to play the position, another who is perhaps better at centre back and doesn’t have the regular attributes of a right back, and one more who has done generally ok but the manager doesn’t particularly fancy despite the faff involved in signing him.
Whilst we have a lot of them none of them seem to be the simple choice.
Arsenal FC, the place for all your player loan needs.