Mikel Arteta says 33-cap Arsenal player has been ‘much better’ recently, is hoping to prove coaches wrong

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Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has singled Cedric Soares out for praise, saying the Gunners defender has been “much better” recently.

The Gunners signed Cedric on an initial loan deal in January, before going on to sign the full-back permanently in the summer upon the expiry of his Southampton contract.

The 29-year-old hasn’t had the best start to life at Arsenal so far – when he joined, he was recovering from a knee injury that would keep him out until March.

English football was then suspended for several months and, when it resumed, he suffered a broken nose in a training ground accident and was ruled out for another month.

To date, Cedric has made just 10 competitive appearances for Arsenal, and is yet to feature in the Premier League this season.

However, Arteta told the club media team that he’s happy with the work being put in by his player on the training ground, and lauded his performances in the Europa League.

“I’ve seen a big change in Cedric in the last month or so,” said the Spaniard. “I think his performances in the Europa League have been much better.

“He needed some time to adapt to our way of playing and most importantly, he needed his fitness levels to be at the standard we need. That was impossible because he had some injuries when he came here.

“He had a really bad injury in his knee, after that he broke his nose and he had some difficulties but again he’s a lad who’s trying really hard every day in training.

“He’s accepting the situation and he’s fighting against it to prove us wrong and we’ll try to provide him more opportunities.”

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Despite Cedric’s unfortunate start to life at Arsenal, he’s still giving his all on the training ground and in games, so much so that Arteta has singled him out for praise.

As a free transfer, the 33-cap Portugal international was a fairly low-risk gamble anyway, but given the progress he’s been making, surely it won’t be long before he starts getting more game time.