A risk worth taking?

Will Benny establish himself at NUFC?
The weekend saw Newcastle lose in the league for the first time this season and suffer a defeat to title chasers Manchester City.

It also saw them fall down the pecking order in the table to 4th due to Tottenham Hotspur beating Aston Villa 2-0 on Monday evening.

The club battled hard against a sturdy City defence and unfortunately lost their best defensive record in the league at the expense of Manchester City’s amazing strike force. The Toon Army also showed tremendous fight and spirit and despite losing the game the support for the team was, as always, amazing.

One of the stand out performances for me during the match was Hatem Ben Arfa, but I still can’t quite decide whether he had a good game or not. The team had enough chances to win the game in attack and despite having the better of the chances failed to hurt City. Ben Arfa was involved in all that was good in attack and everything bad in defence. Is he good enough to start and play regularly?

Returning from a broken leg, we all saw his attacking ability come to the forefront, as he latched onto a loose ball, running at the City defence his shot unluckily came back off the post having beaten Joe Hart all ends up. His pace and quick feet worry defences and his eye for goal, still make him an ideal winger for the Magpies.

However, is this enough? On the flip side I would argue he ultimately cost Newcastle the three ,or at the very least a stab at a draw. It a team game, we know, but his rush of blood to the head moment in bringing down Micah Richards for a stone wall penalty saw Newcastle’s chance of a comeback disappear. He tracked back well to be fair, more than I have seen him do before, but his sloppiness and half hearted approach to certain games has to addressed.

Is he too much of risk to play all the time in the big games? With Sylvain Marveaux, Danny Guthrie, Jonas Gutierrez, Dan Gosling and Sammy Ameobi all fighting for places, does Ben Arfa warrant his?

Thanks to John Mason for sending this in for us to debate.

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

113 thoughts on “A risk worth taking?

  1. Chelsea just don’t seem to want to move on from Mourinho. 7 out of the 11 who started vs Liverpool at the weekend were regulars under him!

    To truly get away from the Mourinho tag they need to change their formation and for that they’ll need one of the biggest squad overhauls ever, which won’t happen.

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  2. Playing odd parts of games, last 20 a few more times and he will be there!

    Dave- Work Work and more work, oh and footy 😆

    Got an A in my business project 😀

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  3. THAT luiz has real bad habit of passing the ball across the pitch when in and around the box,take note pards 😉

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  4. Dan – Thing with Chelsea is that all of those stalwarts are getting on now. Lampard, Drogba, Terry, Cole are all getting on now. They aren’t finished by any means, but they won’t be playing a the top of the game for too many more seasons IMO.

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  5. Ice – Terry and Luiz seem to struggle with pace aswell. Play balls in behind them in the channels and we’ll get some joy 😉

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  6. ben arfa and ba will rape luiz and terry , no point attacking ashley cole cause he is still class and is the only LB I have seen confidently handle Ronaldo.

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  7. Toonsy, agree but it’s just any player they sign they just put throw them into a 4-3-3 formation, which is really 4-5-1 and they end up playing slow and negative football.

    I think they need to go 4-4-1-1 with Mata right behind Torres with a Modric/Sneijderin the middle with Ramires, Malouda on the left and someone like Krasic on the other side.

    A nice balanced team that is quick and effective.

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  8. TOONSY terrys never had much pace but his reading of the game is slipping,your reet aboot the channels,mind bosingwa has some pace like,hope cole is still oot and keep him at left back

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  9. Icedog…the next big Champs League game coming up…FC Bayern to destroy Man City in England. Get your money on that mate, there’s nothing more certain…easy money. 😉 😉
    City will go on to win the Europa Cup though…

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  10. MM you could be right mate but i dont bet now,still dont think m/city are blended right imo at times,maybe a few egos in play there

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  11. Spence remember ye only get out what ye put in 😉
    its a pity we didn’t have chelski this week could have gave them a real hammering 😥 ah well I guess they will have to wait till next week.
    Toonsy have you seen @RealNileRanger some of his **** is funny

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  12. ok Ice…keep your money in your sky rocket mate..

    FC Bayern have way too much for Man City, Bayern will have City chasing the ball like they had us doing last weekend. 1-3 FC Bayern…you heard it here first.

    Toon draw at Old Trafford, then win against Chelsea. That’ll also do nicely… 😉

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  13. Dave – Nah I’ll have a look 🙂

    Interesting to see the Premier League teams not getting their own way in the Champions League. Over rated perhaps?

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  14. Did anyone witness Petre Cech deliberately pull his hand away for the winning goal? 😯

    There has to be an enquiry about that. 😯

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  15. Troy never seen it mate.
    Ice has Batts been on today ? or is he back in the slammer for a few more days ❓ maybe he liked the bed and breakfast 😆

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  16. Chelsea and United are there for the taking.

    I have watched both of their last two games and they have nothing we should fear. We have something they should fear though. Both teams struggle with balls into the box from wide areas. May actually be good games for the Best+Ba partnership.

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  17. Hello guys,
    Really I’m a huge fan of this player since he was 16 years old, he is really a genius, I was really very happy when he moved for Newcastle (because I’m really a big fan of NUFC) and I think it is one of the best transfer you had done.
    Saturday, he plays really a good game, with only 2 or 3 balls he lost, and some great skills to keep the ball when he was so pressure. In big matches you need to keep the ball and this guy has the best ability in the team to do that.
    But now other players need to understand his game, this guy looks always to play in direction of the goal, and looks always to make a killer pass between 3 or 4 players. So maybe he lost the ball or he ignores a team mate who is alone but to far from the goal so for him this kind of pass are useless. But he is still at 70% of his capacity, because when he is 100% he eliminates a lot more opponents and he is very very quick.
    In my opinion Alan Pardew must keep him on the pitch because even at 70% he is better than others.
    I predict a win 2-1 agains ManUnited

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  18. getting off subject here toonsy,but can you or any of the others ,make head nor tail about this uefa finance fair play rule? would maybe make a good discussion if it was explained correctly.

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  19. remember – on his ‘clumsy’ penalty – he wouldn’t have been in that position if saylor wasn’t off the field. 🙂

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  20. There’s no way Arfa can be blamed for costing us the three, or even one point imo. Is Demba now in his untouchable era because of his goals so far? Like Benny was vs Everton? Ba wasted just as many opportunities, I’d say he even had a better one, and he created even less. Are we going to blame benny for bringing down richards when Raylor was nowhere to be seen in his position, yet again? Raylor was our worst player by far, but I don’t even blame him for the loss, we were by and large just outclassed by a better city side.

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  21. I think a player who goes off injured like Taylor did in a game I think the game should either be stopped until that player is back on the field because we conceded a goal because of it against Man City.
    Ok so it adds more time on the clock but it’s basically punishing a team for an injury isn’t it.

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