Cedric Roussel: The gentle giant who loved Coventry and bullied Arsenal’s famous defence

At the heart of it all was a giant Belgian striker who had only been at Highfield Road for a matter of weeks. His name was Cedric Roussel.

Just weeks into the 1999/00 season, Gordon Strachan had a problem. Despite having signed Robbie Keane for £6m that summer, he was light on attacking options. Darren Huckerby had been sold to fund the Keane deal, Dion Dublin was long gone, John Aloisi and Noel Whelan were both carrying injuries. Strachan needed some cover up front.

Luckily, scout Ray Clarke had someone in mind. Former Ajax and Brighton striker Clarke was a key part of Strachan’s scouting set-up. He was based in the Netherlands and had previously spotted George Boateng and recommended him to the Sky Blues. He first saw Roussel as Belgium’s under-21s faced Scotland. He was instantly impressed by the powerful striker’s ability to hold the ball up, pin defenders back and dominate in the air.

Clarke and Strachan were impressed but wanted to see more before committing to a transfer. They broached the idea of a loan deal to Roussel’s agent. It’s fair to say that Cedric was very keen on the idea.

‘My agent came to me and said there was the possibility to go to play to England,’ Roussel told me in 2021. ‘I said, “Are you crazy? It's my dream.” I felt like I was a child. It was a dream. He explained that it was a loan deal with Coventry because they needed strikers. John Aloisi was injured. Noel Whelan was injured.

'My agent told me the move was only to help for two or three months and he told me these fantastic games that were coming up, I was going to play against Arsenal at home on Boxing Day, there was a derby match against Aston Villa, a home match against Chelsea, Newcastle, there were so many big matches. I told him that we had to make the deal.’

Roussel wanted the deal. Strachan wanted the deal. The deal was done. Roussel arrived having made a solid start to his professional career with Belgian side Gent, scoring eight goals in 32 league appearances. He had also represented his country at under 16, 18, 19 and 21 levels. However, upon moving to Coventry, he quickly realised that the Premier League was at a whole different level to what he was used to.

‘I was sure that I would fit in well because [the English game] was the game for me because I was good in the air, strong and big,’ he said. ‘The only problem was that it took a while to get used to the rhythm of English football because in Belgium it’s a lot slower. Training as well was harder and longer.

'In the first couple of weeks I was going back to my flat and sleeping all day because I was so tired. It was three hours training in the morning and then I’d often stay in the afternoon with Gordon Strachan and a keeper for finishing in the afternoon. I was happy to do that, it was no problem. I’d get home at 4pm or 5pm and just sleep.’

It wasn’t just the physical demands of the English game that Roussel had to get to grips with. His imposing frame made you sometimes forget that he was still a very young man taking his first steps outside of his homeland.

‘It was a big move for me,’ Roussel admitted. ‘It was the first time that I was leaving home. My parents, my friends, my brother, it was my first time away from all of them and my first move abroad. My agent knew this and said he would come with me and stay in England with me for a few weeks while I settled in.’

Something that undoubtedly helped Roussel focus and settle in was his steely determination to earn a permanent move. His initial deal was a three-month loan but he had no intention of making a quick return to Belgium.

‘In my head I wasn’t there just for three months,’ he admitted. ‘I was looking further, I was going to earn a contract and stay for many years. I settled well, Leamington is a very nice town. It would have been hard to go back to reality in Belgium after three months.’

He came into a Coventry team that was high on attacking talent. Alongside the aforementioned Keane you had the creativity of Gary McAllister, the wide play of Steve Froggatt, Youssef Chippo’s never-say-die attitude and engine and the maverick tendencies of Mustapha Hadji.

His first appearance in sky blue saw him come off the bench for the final five minutes of a 4-1 Highfield Road demolition of Newcastle. For Roussel, it was a dream come true to be not just playing in the Premier League but to be sharing the pitch with a striker of Alan Shearer’s calibre. The greatest compliment that we can give is that Roussel did not look out of place in these surroundings.

He started the next two matches, a 0-0 draw with Sheffield Wednesday and a 4-0 thrashing of Watford. He dropped down to the bench following the Watford win, but ahead of a Monday Night Football clash with Aston Villa, he got the impression that he was set for a recall. He was so sure that he would start that he made calls back to his family and advised them to fly over to Coventry for what he had been told would be a spicy local derby.

‘We went to the hotel on Monday morning and Mustapha Hadji came to me and said, “You know that this game is very, very important for the fans. They hate each other, they want to kill each other and we have to win this game.”

'I didn’t remember from Belgium hearing that Coventry against Villa was a big game but Hadji said, “It’s bigger than the games against Arsenal and Chelsea. You will see tonight, it will be very tense, very passionate.” I said, “Woah, okay, okay.”’

Roussel did start and he made the perfect start. Eight minutes into the match, Keane burst down the left and fired in a fierce cross. Roussel connected with a bullet header. The ball flew past Villa goalkeeper David James and into the net. Roussel had lift off.

‘It was the best way to introduce myself to the fans,’ he said. ‘I remember when the ball hit the net, oh my goodness, the noise of the fans was so amazing. It was so loud. From that moment I knew I didn’t want to go back to Belgium, I wanted to play games like that every week.’

Into the second half, with the scores locked at 1-1 following a Dion Dublin (who else?) equaliser, Roussel provided a vital touch to assist Keane’s winner. The pair had linked up beautifully, each assisting the other for the two Sky Blues goals in a 2-1 win. It was the start of a memorable partnership on and off the field.

‘A great partnership takes a lot of work,’ Roussel told me. ‘Robbie was such a talented player and we worked together in training. The manager made sure we played together in all of the small games in training and we worked on this partnership. Gordon knows football better than me and he said, “You two are going to be a big deal in the Premier League.”

'He was the guy to play with me, he was the perfect player for me. He had amazing movement. When I went for a header he knew where the ball was going to go. It was such a great opportunity to play with him. He was happy to give me the ball and I was happy to assist him for goals. We scored goals but also gave a lot of assists between each other.’

The positive vibes were certainly mutual.

‘I’d played with people like Don Goodman at Wolves, someone who was good in the air and Cédric was another who suited me,’ Keane told me in 2021. ‘He was a big guy who was good in the air and I was good at reading flick-ons. I liked to play in what you might call the nine-and-a-half role where you would drop off and come and get the ball whereas Cédric liked to stay up.

'We hit it off quickly and got an understanding of where each other would be. That was a really good partnership. He was a good player and we suited each other well with me dropping off and him as the target man.’

All of which brings us to Boxing Day 1999. Roussel had been in and out of the team following his breakthrough against the Villa but he was back in the team for the festive fixture at Highfield Road against Arsenal. It’s fair to say that the news came as a surprise to Cedric.

‘It was Christmas and my family and best friends were in England,’ he recalled. ‘I didn’t know I was playing when I got to the stadium. I was in the toilets and Gordon came in and asked if I was ready for the day. I said I was. I thought I would be watching the game from the stands with my friends.

'He said, “I think you are the best solution to giving their big guys trouble at the back.” I said, “Woah, I’m starting?” He said not to worry and that I should just run over them, fight, win the duels, fight and be stronger and then Robbie next to me would make the difference.

'I went out for the warm up and saw my friends as I was going out, they were surprised I was going out for the warm up and they asked if I was on the bench. I said I was starting and I could see on their faces that they were scared for me and they said, “Oh my god, you’re going to start against this team of Henry, Bergkamp and Suker? Enjoy it!” 

Enjoy it he most certainly did. Despite that this was the famous Arsenal backline of Seaman, Dixon, Adams, Keown and Winterburn, Roussel bullied the opposition as the Sky Blues picked up a superb 3-2 win.

With just six minutes on the clock, Roussel nodded a long ball down into the path of McAllister. The Coventry captain moved forward before wrongfooting Seaman with a long-range drive. 1-0, Roussel with the assist. Roussel would get another assist in the second half, again providing a flick on for Keane to deftly finish. As against the Villa, it proved to be the decisive goal. He hadn’t got on the scoresheet but Roussel had given Tony Adams a torrid time.

He walked away with a pair of assists and the Sky Sports man of the match award. It meant that his friends were left waiting around on a bitter Boxing Day night as Roussel attended to man of the match duties.

‘My friends were waiting outside the stadium for an hour because I had to do interviews and get the trophy,’ he said. ‘My brother said I had taken my time and I explained it was because I was man of the match and I showed him the trophy and then he started crying and said he was so proud of me.’

It was a performance that certainly stuck in the memory of Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger.

‘I used to be quite friendly with the Arsenal chief scout Steve Rowley,’ Ray Clarke said. ‘He came on the phone to me after we beat Arsenal 3-2 and said, “I’ve had my boss on the phone talking about your striker, where’d you get him from?” I told him and he said he had just battered Adams and Keown.’

The battering of Adams and Keown was undoubtedly the high point of Roussel’s Coventry career but that’s not to say that there weren’t more eye-catching performances.

He was excellent in a fine 3-2 win over Sunderland and scored twice against Charlton in the FA Cup, although a comeback from the Addicks saw them snatch a last gasp 3-2 win and advance to the next round at the expense of the Sky Blues. There was also a brace in a 3-2 defeat at Old Trafford. What was it about Roussel and 3-2 scorelines that season?!

Lest we forget, Roussel had only initially signed on a short-term loan. The problem for Coventry was that his performances had attracted the attention of several other clubs, with Spurs and Newcastle among those said to be ready to table offers for the Belgian. Financially, both could blow Coventry out of the water, but Roussel’s heart was set on staying in the Midlands.

‘I said to Gordon Strachan that I wanted to sign a permanent contract with Coventry,’ he said. ‘I told him, “You have given me the chance to realise my dream to play in the Premier League. I am settled here. I love Leamington. I love the stadium, I love the fans and I am starting games. I don’t even want to see the salaries of Tottenham and the others, I just want to sign. I don’t even want to know [the wages] I just want to stay at Coventry.”

'Gordon said he had never heard that before and he was ready to cry because I was a gentleman. I wasn’t a gentleman, I just recognised that he had given me so much. I just wanted to sign the contract and I wanted that from the first day I arrived at Coventry.’

A permanent deal was done. Roussel was a Coventry player. However, it wasn’t long before everything changed.

During the close season after Roussel’s first season at Highfield Road, Robbie Keane, the man who he had struck up a superb partnership with, was sold to Inter Milan for £13m. It was a great move for Keane but a hammer blow for Roussel.

‘I arrived at the training ground and Robbie asked to speak to me,’ Roussel recalled. ‘He said, “I’m off. I’m going to Inter Milan.” I was so sad. I was devastated.’

Craig Bellamy arrived from Norwich as Keane’s replacement, but he and Roussel never hit it off in the way that he had with Keane.

‘Craig Bellamy was a fantastic player but I never got that same feeling that I did with Robbie,’ Roussel said. ‘Bellamy was more selfish. With Robbie, we could play and it didn’t matter who scored or who got the assists. With Craig, he was more selfish, he wanted the highlights, he was looking for his statistics.’

It would prove to be a poor season for Roussel personally and Coventry as a whole. It ended with the Sky Blues relegated, dropping out of the top division for the first time in 34 years. Roussel was not there to see Coventry’s relegation. He was sold to Wolves in February for £750,000.

The move came after a potential transfer to Wimbledon had fallen through. At the time, there was restlessness from fans as it was understood that the club needed to move Roussel on before they could complete a deal for John Hartson. For Roussel, the breakdown of the Wimbledon move was very much for personal reasons – he simply did not want to leave Coventry.

‘Coventry was the best time I had in my career,’ Roussel said. ‘I will always love Coventry. I knew Coventry needed money, that’s why I left. Gordon said he wanted to keep me but they needed the money. It was difficult to tell my family I was leaving Coventry. I had to put it into my mind that I was going. I had met a girlfriend and I had a child and when I understood that I had to go I knew that I wanted to stay in Leamington, that was my home. It would have been too difficult to move to [Wimbledon] and settle again.’

The opportunity to move to Wolves meant that Roussel could stay in Leamington. It was a deal that he reluctantly accepted. He would come up against the Sky Blues early on the following season, with both clubs playing in the First Division. It proved an emotional homecoming for Roussel.

‘[Wolves] played against Coventry [the following season] at Highfield Road and the fans stood up and started to chant my name,’ he said. ‘I was crying. When I went out, I instinctively went to the Coventry bench and Gordon had to tell me I was on the wrong side! Something broke when I left Coventry, I was upset to leave.’

Roussel would never hit the heights of his time at Coventry again in a career that lasted until he retired at the age of 37. My interview with Roussel came during the research for my book When The Sky Was Blue. Our conversation ended with him telling me of his eagerness to come to Coventry to watch the club. He was excited to get back to Coventry and see the fans that he had built such a connection with in a short space of time.

Following the interview, I shared a few quotes on social media, one of which was picked up by Robbie Keane. When I next spoke to Roussel, he mentioned that he had spoken to Keane and was thrilled to have done so. Again, he stressed his excitement at coming to Coventry.

He would never get the chance to come back to the city. On 24 June 2023, Roussel died after suffering a cardiac arrest. He was just 45 years old.

As a player, Roussel shone brightly but briefly for Coventry. For half a season or so, he was part of one of the most exciting Coventry teams of the modern era. Fans will always remember his partnership with Robbie Keane, that header against the Villa and how he bullied that iconic Arsenal defence. As the Sky Blues travel to face Arsenal in this season’s curtain-raiser, let’s hope big Cedric is watching down on the club that he loved.  

I've made this article free to read to honour Cedric and also to mark Coventry City's return to the Premier League. If you enjoy it, you'll find more exclusive interviews, tactical analysis and long-form Coventry City features available to Phoenix members.