After a rollercoaster five years on the south coast, Cedric Soares has declared that he is to leave Southampton at the end of the season, as confirmed by the Telegraph.
Whilst player announcements like these are not totally unusual in the world of football these days, this particular one smacks of something underlyingly rotten at the club.
In his first season for the Saints, he helped the team to sixth in the Premier League, qualifying for the UEFA Europa League and finishing just three points off a potential UEFA Champions League place.
And although next season’s respectable finish of eighth was also something to be admired, the journey since then has simply spiralled, culminating in an abysmal 2019-20 campaign that has seen the team yet to win at home and which saw the club’s biggest ever defeat as an English league side in all competitions in their history with the humiliating 0-9 home loss to Leicester City.
It is a fall from grace for the Portuguese right-back, and he simply wants no more part in it.
And who can blame him?
After helping his country win the European Championships in 2016, one of the highest possible accolades for a European footballer, he was hopeful that his career could go from strength to strength. Now, however, he has lost his place in the national side and is way behind the likes of Nelson Semedo (Barcelona), Joao Cancelo (Manchester City) and Ricardo Pereira (Leicester City).
It can be no coincidence that his form, as well as that of the team, has taken a drastic turn since the departure of manager Ronald Koeman and the simultaneous arrival of new chairman Gao Jisheng. The Dutchman was leaving for Everton while the Chinese billionaire was putting together plans to purchase an 80% stake in the club back in 2017.
Fans can rightfully feel aggrieved at the lack of monetary or emotional investment from Gao, who seems steadfast on the insistence of a sustainable model for the club.
Most fans will tell you that sustainability is all well and good, but with serious mistakes made in the last three or four transfer windows, all the money brought in from the sales of Virgil van Dijk, Sadio Mane, Luke Shaw, Morgan Schneiderlin, Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, and Graziano Pelle – to name but a few – seems to have dried up, and now many fans believe it’s high time the never-present Gao should either dish out or desist before it’s too late.
Cedric Soares will be a free transfer in July which seems a shame for someone who’s stock had been so high 18 months ago, and while some down on the south coast might not mind seeing the back of the Portuguese international, there are more worrying signs afoot with club captain Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s contract soon to be up as well.
Add to all this the fact that Ralph Hasenhüttl – a manager initially touted as being ‘too good’ for Southampton upon arrival – may very well feel it could be time to walk as well, and a recipe for the Red and Whites of Southampton spells nothing other than a complete and total disaster.
To say that this wonderful club is in real danger of relegation – or worse – would be a grave understatement, and unless something serious happens in the January transfer window, Southampton Football Club can start waving goodbye to the Premier League, and saying hello to a troubling and difficult time in the tough Championship next season.
