Ben Arfa will be fit for final three games.

There is little doubt that Hatem Ben Arfa is one of the most exciting players at Newcastle these days.

The skilled Frenchman is one of those players that is capable of getting you off your seat and creates a buzz within the ground whenever he gets the ball. Sure he might not do something special every time he gets the ball, but you never know if this time is going to be the time that something special comes off.

Put simply, I can't wait to see the lad back in action. We should have had a whole season of tricks, flicks and skills out of the 24-year-old, but a cruel injury from a crude Nigel de Jong challenge plus an infection in his leg during his recovery put paid to that. Hopefully Ben Arfa will feel no lasting effects from the injury and hopefully it won't hold him back in the future.

If there is to be any lasting effects then it won't be because Ben Arfa hasn't been worked hard enough. He trained in France before he came back to Tyneside, and then stepped it up a level in the search for match fitness. It was originally thought that the Liverpool away game was the target, but that has gone out of the window now.

"He has certainly been working this week," said Alan Pardew when quizzed on the recovery of the Frenchman. "We think actually the last three games is a possibility and we are just going to leave it at that, featuring him in some part of those three."

So that will put Benny in the frame for the home visits of Birmingham and West Brom as well as the away trip to Chelsea.

It's been a long way back for Hatem Ben Arfa, but if we can get him back to full fitness, playing to his full potential with no long lasting effects of his injury then we could indeed have a very special player on our hands.

Fingers firmly crossed on that.