It hasn’t been the best of weeks for Arsenal, as the Gunners followed up their 1-0 away loss to Aston Villa in the Premier League with an uninspiring 1-1 draw away to PSV Eindhoven in their final Champions League group game of the season.
Mikel Arteta’s men were already guaranteed to go through top of their group heading into the game, and the Spaniard made changes to his side reflecting that, but the performance was still well below par.
The north Londoners actually took the lead through Eddie Nketiah in the first half, but they were second-best for much of the game, with the fullbacks Jakub Kiwior and Cedric Soares looking particularly average – at best.
The Portuguese right-back was making his first start in over a year, and despite not putting in a truly woeful performance, it really is time that he moved on and never pulls on the red and white of Arsenal again.
Cedric Soraes’s game in numbers
The former Southampton man was chosen to start ahead of Ben White on Tuesday night to give the Englishman some much-needed rest ahead of a compact and intense Christmas schedule that’ll see the Gunners take on Liverpool twice, Brighton & Hove Albion, West Ham United and Fulham.
Unfortunately for the former Seagulls’ defender, he was called into action in the 62nd minute as his team looked for a winner while putting in quite the shift to keep the Dutch side from doing the same.
Soares certainly wasn’t abysmal on the night, getting a 6/10 for his performance from the Evening Standard’s Simon Collings, but he did nothing notable or worthy of another start in the team.
If anything, 6/10 could be generous, as he managed to lose 100% of his duels on the night, which is unforgivable for a defender, regardless of how attacking-oriented they are.
In fact, he was poor in that regard as well, registering 0.14 expected assists and a passing accuracy of just 69%.
Ultimately, the “defensive liability”, as described by journalist Mike White, did little to disprove this tag as PSV’s equalising goal actually came from his side, proving it’s time to take him out of the team for good.
