Arsenal defender Cedric Soares is attracting interest from Fulham, Villarreal and Bayer Leverkusen, football.london understands. The trio all showed an interest in signing the Portugal defender over the summer, but following a positive end to the season, he opted to stay in north London.
Since then though the 31-year-old has found it difficult to get game time. He has played just 119 minutes all season amid stiff competition from Takehiro Tomiyasu and Ben White who has shifted out from centre-back to right-back.
With this in mind all three teams have again shown interest in signing Cedric when the January transfer window opens in six weeks time and football.london understands that they have reached out to the player's agent in the hope of agreeing a move.
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Cedric is still thought to be a valued member of Mikel Arteta's squad due to his experience and professionalism and has been training Arsenal's under-15s team at points this season as he seeks to achieve his coaching badges. It is possible that he would have played more minutes across the Europa League group stages if a series of small injuries had not forced him to miss crucial matches early in the campaign.
Speaking earlier this month, Arteta bemoaned the fact that he has not been able to give the Portugal international more playing time. “The competition is one (reason), the second one is because he was injured for a while and he had a recurring injury," the Spaniard told football.london when asked why Cedric had not been playing more last month. “Now he’s fit, and he’s a player who deserves to play. I want to give him the minutes because he deserves that.”
Arsenal are understood to be keen to strengthen their squad in January and defence is one of the areas they could be looking to bolster. It has been reported that Edu is reportedly targeting Eintracht Frankfurt's Evan Ndicka who is coming into the final few months of his contract.
When it comes to the right-back spot though they are relatively well stocked. White and Tomiyasu have both played the majority of the minutes this season, while exciting youngster Brooke Norton-Cuffy is impressing on loan at Rotherham and fellow academy player Reuell Walters caught the eye in pre-season.
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