The Ben Arfa love story nearly never happened.

It's a story that quite literally could have been taken straight from the movies.

A tale of one mans struggle to escape from a midget militant (Deschamps) only for him to fall in love in love with an unlikely match (Newcastle) only for that fleeting romance to be cut short by the nasty man (de Jong) forcing the chap to go away, only for his feelings towards this unlikely match to strengthen in his absence.

You get the point anyway. It certainly appears as though Ben Arfa has a lot of love for Newcastle at the minute, and given that he is back on Tyneside today I reckon that we'll start to hear a bit more about his new found willingness towards the black and white cause.

This is not a one way love though - this is a two-way street as NUFC fans also have a lot of love for Ben Arfa even though we have only really seen fleeting glimpses of the lad in action. From what we have seen, and if he can get to back the kind of display that he showed at Everton, Benny is a special player. The kind of player that us Toon fans love to love.

It could have been very different though and we are lucky to have Ben Arfa back with us after he revealed that he faced the prospect of losing a limb :shock: after contracting an infection on his stricken leg.

He said: “I needed a second operation because I had an infection. It was a big infection which could have been very dangerous. I was told that I could have had my leg cut off if they didn’t operate on me very quickly."

“You take a blow, that’s for sure, and I started seeing myself as someone whose career was over, who no longer plays football.”

I never realised just how serious his injury was. Granted it wasn't the injury itself that has caused this extended absence, but I somehow doubt that Ben Arfa would have got an infection under normal circumstances.

To me this just raises further question marks over the players ability going forward. All being well there will be no lasting effects and Benny will return as bright as a button, almost as though nothing ever happened. Personally though, I have my doubts but only time will tell on that score.

It's still a long road back for Benny and there is still a lot to overcome so his recovery must be taken one step at a time. Early estimates suggest that we could see Benny back in black and white action in around a month, but that is if he doesn't suffer any setbacks.

What we need to do, as fans, is play it cool. It can be hard, especially for us lot, but we shouldn't be putting any excess pressure on the lad. Let him return when he is good and ready. Not before. It's natural to get excited as he is one of those players that can get you that way, but we need to temper that emotion and excitement.

Benny's time will come again.