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Opinion: 121-appearance Southampton man’s return can only be a good thing

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Southampton’s point against Manchester United on the weekend was their 4th of the season, and it was a memorable game for one particular man at St. Mary’s, as Cedric Soares made his first Premier League appearance for the Saints since January when he featured in a 2-1 win over Everton at St. Mary’s.

After that appearance against Everton, the Portuguese full-back was sent out on-loan to Inter Milan for the second half of the season, a spell where he made just four Serie A appearances, the defender is now back at St. Mary’s and made his return to the starting eleven against Manchester United.

The defender picked up a rating of 6.5/10, as per Saints Marching, and whilst it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Yan Valery make a return to the lineup in the coming weeks after the international break, having Cedric around is certainly no harm to the side.

The stats that Cedric put in against Manchester United were certainly impressive. In his 90 minutes for the Saints up against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side, the Portuguese full-back made two tackles, two interceptions and three clearances, via WhoScored.

The display against United was Cedric’s 121st for the club since he made his £4.7m move from Sporting to the English south coast back in summer 2015 (BBC) and whilst he may be into his fourth year at the club now, at the age of 28-years-old the full-back still has plenty to give.

Rotating in the role on the right-hand side of the Saints’ backline with young Yan Valery could be the way to go for the defender, and with Ralph Hasenhuttl knowing that Valery can’t do it all, keeping Cedric for rotation is certainly not a bad thing.

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