Arsenal: 4 vital backup players for the rest of the season

2. Cedric Soares

The situation surrounding Takehiro Tomiyasu appears to have calmed. Since featuring in the Burnley match when he definitely shouldn’t have, he’s had three weeks to recover and finally has been pictured back in training.

But the calf problem he picked up at Elland Road has been troubling him since. That injury has been the same one keeping him out of action and whenever you aggravate a previous injury it’s cause for concern.

Hope is that he’s shaken off the problem fully and can go on another 15-game run in the side like he did earlier in the season where he starts every match. If he doesn’t though, and injury strikes again, the man to come into the side is someone fans have considerably less confidence about.

Cedric Soares’ performance against Wolves deserved the praise it got, and got more praise than it normally would have purely on account of the surprising nature of it. That’s a level he has to maintain whenever he is involved for the rest of the campaign, although history, sadly, suggests it is one he won’t keep.

Given Tomiyasu’s integral role in the side he becomes irreplaceable. Yet he’s also someone heavily involved in the physical side of matches and therefore always runs the risk.

It might not be the end of Cedric in the team just yet.

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