Mikel Arteta says Cedric deserves great credit for working his way back into the Portuguese national team and said his teammates at Arsenal can learn from the right-back’s professionalism.
The 30-year-old made his debut for his country in 2014, won the European Championships in 2016 and continued to be a regular until 2018 when his form for Southampton dipped and he fell out of favour.
Joining Arsenal with an injury in 2020 didn’t immediately help his international ambitions although a run in the side last season did see him earn a surprise recall in March 2021 from head coach Fernando Santos.
His latest selection follows a three-month stint in Mikel Arteta’s first team where he’s ably covered for the injured Takehiro Tomiyasu.
“It’s not a coincidence,” said Arteta when asked about the Portuguese defender.
“When you have the professionalism, the dedication, the habits that Cedric has, good things happen to you.
“He’s been patient, keeping quiet and working hard. When he’s had the chances he’s done well and that’s why the national team manager has decided to bring him back, which I’m really happy with.
He added: “I think the player has to take all the credit and his teammates have to learn a lot about that option.
“When you don’t play, when you are written off, you can take a completely different route, you can start to blame the coach or your teammates or the environment or whatever, and look somewhere else.
“What he tried to do was to stay there, to stay focused, to learn more and wait for his opportunity. When he needed to talk, talk on the pitch, don’t talk on the microphone because here is very easy to talk.”
It remains to be seen how long Cedric retains his place at Arsenal. Japan international Tomiyasu is closing in on full fitness following calf injuries in both legs and will want his place back after a very impressive start to life at Emirates Stadium.
All the same, kudos to Cedric. While Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Hector Bellerin went in search of new challenges, he’s been rewarded for his patience and grown in stature along the way.
He’s done well and been very engaged and passionate about the team.
Hope he stays once Tomi is back, great to have the competition for places.
I believe his contract expires two years this summer, at which point he’ll be 32 so a good time to go and get a final good contract somewhere. I reckon he’ll stay until then.
Continue to do well @cedric
Well… the big difference is that Cedric was signed as a back up player. Holding I would assume smth similar. On the other hand Pepe was signed as a first team player. AMN never played on his CM position which he thinks he is best. Saliba has the right to be frustrated imo given that he saw Luiz Mustaphi and Kolasinac take his place at the squad. Saliba played well for Saint Et., Nice and now Marseille. Not similar magnitude but Pep didnt like Zlatan at Barcelona. Didnt mean neither was wrong. In our situation both MA and Saliba have… Read more »
Totally agreee with you. In football, good performances should always be rewarded. Fans will pop up here and talk about behavior although Saliba did nothing wrong during his time with Arsenal.
Take note of what Arteta said, in direct contrast to what Saliba said. He doesn’t want to be on the bench, but he comes back and replaces who? he has to come back work hard and prove he’s worth the spot he wants. There’s no entitlement, doesn’t even matter how much one cost in transfer fees, you perform well and get rewarded for your work or sit on the bench and wait your turn. Martinelli did, is he not thriving? Arteta said players should stop going to the cameras infront of the mics and claim get time. they should do… Read more »
There is been a lot of negative bias against Cedric on this forum. But if we qualify for champions league, he deserves all the plaudits as a very valuable member of the squad who stepped in and made very very few mistakes during a time when we needed the backup to be reliable. Great commitment shown..
Has been*
Very true. I think the negativity reflects his limitations, but he’s great on the ball, tenacious and highly professional, so hats off to him for all that.
Just slow as fuck so Spence would be an upgrade 😉
Spence will definitely be an upgrade but not sure about the slow take. He’s good at what he does however limited in other aspects of his game.
Arseblog forgetting he is a Kia signing…
What do you mean by this exactly? The subtext appears to be that Arseblog has an unfair agenda against Kia signings. It seems an unusual point to make. Are you a proponent of Kia Joorabchian being involved in Arsenal’s signings? Are you a proponent to such an extent that your sole takeaway from this article about a player being rewarded for his patience is that it shows an unfair bias against the signings made by Kia? It’s such a unique position for (presumably) a football fan to take, to consider the agent through which a player was signed such a… Read more »
Well, in the case of Cedric Arsenal are literally benefitting in a pretty timely way from what you call “a Kia signing”.
The sensible thing to do would be to acknowledge that even though it goes against whatever your opinion of Kia or any other other superagent. Sometimes
My personal opinion is that Arsenal fan’s moral panic about super-agents was mostly valid. As usual though some took things way, way, way too far.
Edu’s structural changes to the scouting network were needed. And despite that change of strategy, keeping Cedric in the squad (as opposed to paying him off to leave like we did with others we wanted rid of) was a good move, even though his agent’s name is Kia Joorabchian.
i dont care about the agent as ultimately Arteta and Edu have final say on signing or renewing contracts. Arseblog ignores this and regularly blames signing on Kia
Funnimy, the first thing my Barca friend brought up when we talked Arsenal was: “Wow that Cedric guy is good!”
Not BW, not Martinelli, not Saka, but Cedric.
Never thought that would happen.
The official Arsenal youtube did a “Day in the Life of” feature with Cedric about a year ago, and it does back up what Arteta’s saying. Very dedicated guy who lives for the game, with a supportive partner and a lovely dog too
(https://youtube.com/watch?v=KRzyhjHQ5CE)
Lovely dog pretty much seals it.
Look at the footage, it’s conclusive. If we score – Cedric is always involved – in the celebration! He is more than an Entertainer!
Seriously, I had concerns with Tomi being out but Cedric has for the most part been fine. Wonder if Hector will move on permanently this summer?
Ay, it’s really hard to see a way back for Hector now. His place in the first 11 is well and truly gone thanks to Tomi. Contract expires in 2023. Surely the club have to just take what they can get with him as the right back position looks settled with a strong first choice and a good backup.
Is that a message to Saliba, given his recent comments?
It wouldn’t hurt Saliba to have a listen.
Not everything is about Saliba.
They’re in totally different situations, exact opposite ends of their careers. Even about the national team–Cedric was a long-time full international who won the Euros (I think his country’s only international honour); he might hope to be recalled by Portugal, but that wasn’t the basis for his career decisions. That probably was about family, and where he lived, and his last big contract, etc. For a guy Saliba’s age, with the promise of a long career and many contracts in the future, the chance to show Deschamps that he belongs in the France squad now–by November–is probably a lot more… Read more »
Arteta is letting everyone (including those out on loan) know how to conduct themselves as a squad member – whether you’re in the starting lineup or out of it.
The individual player’s context doesn’t matter.
It is a message to every player I guess
This team has played at a high level. The fact that Cedric has not appeared to be a weak link in this team is commendable. He has been solid and consistent for 4 months of Tomiyasu’s absence. A solid backup, he has been a signing well worth, and not a mistake like many previously thought.
Very few players get into really good teams. I think that the team around Cédric has brought out the best in him, maybe a ceiling much higher than anyone realised he had. I won’t complain either way when Tomi is fit, I’ll trust MA8 with that decision, but it’s great to see a true professional at work. No moaning, no whinging, realising that he’s paid a salary that most of us wouldn’t even dream of, to do something we would do in our spare time for nothing (if we could, in my case). Respect to you, Mr Soares.
He impressed me in an inconsistent Southampton team a few years back (not that I saw him that often, so it may be inaccurate). And, of course, he played on a just-below-the-best national team.
Can’t help but feel he’s sending a message to saliba and his reps here
He is an abled back up right back no more no less, kudos to him for his professionism but we need a fit Tomiyashu asap.
Keep improving, Cedric.💪👊
Never quite understood the extent of Blog’s dislike for Cedric earlier this season. I remember him describing his “aversion to all things Cedric” or something like that. He has always done a job for us though. A few bad performances but they have been more than outweighed by the solid, 7 out of 10 performances we’ve been getting recently. The squad needs much more strength in depth than it has and if they can find a few more players like Cedric then it’ll go a long way to addressing that. I’d go so far as to say that it was… Read more »