Is it time to end the Ben Arfa love affair?

Time to move on?
Time to move on?
As a football fan I like to be excited. I like to be perched on the edge of my seat wondering what happens next.

I also like winning and having both is ideal, but at Newcastle we’ve had hardly any excitement or a decent run of wins for some time.

I think this is why I always look to go back to the excitement. Do we play exciting football? No, and we haven’t for a good few years now. Do we have a player who can excite and produce the extraordinary? The answer to that is most definitely yes. Yes we do. And at his brilliant best you’ll be hard pushed to find a more exciting player that has strutted his stuff at St James’ Park in the black and white for a good for years at least.

The problem is that the relationship between that player – Hatem Ben Arfa – and manager seems to have gone beyond the point of repair, which is a crying shame.

With clubs such as AC Milan and former club Lyon linked with the player it now seems just a matter of time before the talented playmaker departs, and although it pains me to say it, I think that moment can’t come soon enough.

A lot of fingers will be pointed towards Alan Pardew if or most likely when Ben Arfa departs, and I agree to a point. I do feel that Hatem was scapegoated by the manager especially towards the back end of last season.

As a manager it’s Pardew’s job to get the best out of a player. The strength of Ben Arfa is not in his tracking back or his work rate, his strength is making things happen in attack with his unpredictability. Pardew should have accommodated that, in my humble opinion at least.

However not all of this is Alan Pardew’s fault and the player himself must take his fair share of the blame. Are we just seeing history repeat itself?

In terms of performances we all know that Benny can win games on his own, but in all the time he’s been here you can count those types or performances on one hand and more often than not he drifts out of the game.

Apparently he’s come back to training not in an ideal state although the player contests this, he’s rumoured to have had arguments with team mates and he’ll throw digs at his state of affairs in interviews in his homeland. Not good is it really?

Thing is, I’d agree with him if this was the first time he’s found himself isolated at a club, but it happened at Lyon, Marseille, with his national team, us. You have to wonder don’t you? Maybe he is L’enfant terrible after all?

Maybe it’s time he was moved on, for the good of all concerned?

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.

844 thoughts on “Is it time to end the Ben Arfa love affair?

  1. SANTII

    I think it just shows that a Forest are desperate for money. We will have got them for less because we pay upfront and Forest have a year to replace them.

    We always seem to be in the market for bargains. It’s the Mike Ashley way…

    But there’s no gaping hole in our squad so I think it will have to be a cracking bargain…

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  2. As for Ben Arfa…I’d always rather have a good player in our squad than out of it. A few million quid isn’t going to score a goal. But he hasn’t done much for us for a while and when he has played, he hasn’t fitted into our system. Doesn’t seem like a team player sadly…

    Loads of skill with the ball but his head isn’t right. If he was that good a player, there would be a queue to sign him…

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  3. We dismissed Forster too quick without even playing him, isn’t it even sooner to dismiss Jak Alnwick? Saylor can **** off though, he’s a shower of *****.

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  4. Forster was sold because he and Krul demanded first team football so one of them had to go. I agree though, we shouldn’t dismiss Alnwick but some added competition wouldn’t hurt…

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  5. very nice of Naismith to buy tickets for coming season for unmployed in Lpool
    good on yer son

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  6. ToonDarnSarf @ 810 and 812

    The 20 team limit is purely because that’s how many teams are in the PL. No other reason. The best fit is a limit of 8. That way you play each other 5 times and all teams are then involved in the knockout finale.

    Or 19, where you play each other twice and only have 2 rounds of knockout. Or, of course, 20 and have no rounds of knockout.

    But I like the 3 rounds of knockout. It means that if you aren’t going to win the title you can at least get into the top 8 and try for the league cup.

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  7. Ice – bloody hell, how much are Everton paying Naismith like?.
    If he’s on enough money to buy tickets for the unemployed of Lpool then I reckon the taxman needs to be checking his feckin accounts!!!.

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    Sign up now… places are filling fast! 😯
    Richie and Newkie.. I notice you haven’t signed up again as yet 👿 Do it post haste! 😀

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  9. I’m in man, just haven’t picked my team yet, just got an “auto select” team for now until I can be bothered to pick my own.

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