Cedric Soares is a 28-year-old right-back who’s currently playing his trade at Southampton in the English Premier League. Soares is been linked with Arsenal as the Gunners are looking for a back-up for Hector Bellerin.
In the current season, the Portuguese international has a combine of 4 interceptions and tackles per match in 20 appearances. While also making 2.8 clearances and 0.3 blocks. He has made 16 PL appearances while also representing Portugal in Confederation Cup.
To give you a perspective of his stats, one of the better defensive full backs in PL, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, has a combined 5.9 tackles and interceptions per match. He has made an average of 1.8 clearances and 0.4 blocks in every match.
Coming to his offensive numbers, he’s somewhat on a similar level as that of the Manchester United full-back. Soares is making 0.7 key passes, 0.9 successful crosses and 1.4 successful long balls. While Wan-Bissaka is making 0.8 key passes, 0.3 successful crosses and 1 successful long balls per game.
Soares has good numbers for a full-back playing in a defensive team like Southampton. However, he does have a big flaw in his game, this season he’s only completing 69% of his passes. Which is unsatisfactory for a PL player. Players like Alexandre-Arnold and Wan-Bissaka have 76% and 80% pass completion rate respectively.
- Market Value: €10 million
- Expected Fee: €4.5 million
- Chances to join: Another late bloomer, though he makes a lot of sense, and Raul Sanllehi usually gets his man. He’s all green for a move to Arsenal
- Expected to join: January
Soares only has 6 months left on his current contract hence could cost as less as €6 millions as reported in media. He will be back up to Bellerin and considering the Spaniard’s injury record, a back-up is required. And if he’s coming for peanuts with as much as PL experience as Soares, it makes a lot of sense.
