Are Marseille playing hard ball over Ben Arfa?

Posted on August 11th, 2010 | 130 Comments |

Love em or Hate'm?
Love em or Hate'm?
The potential loan move of Hatem Ben Arfa to Newcastle has been one of the most protracted transfer stories of the summer to date.

Maybe it just seems that way as it involves our club? Possibly, but for a move that had seemed pretty certain earlier in the week there doesn’t seem to be a lot happening with regard to it.

You can take a look at any number of sources for the latest information regarding the transfer, and I am willing to bet that you won’t find two articles that are reporting the same. The deal is on, the deal is off, Newcastle agree a deal, then they don’t and so on. At the end of the day it is the amount of time that the deal is taking that is causing these different stories.

The facts are that nothing has really changed. Nothing was ever going to happen during this week as Ben Arfa is with the France squad preparing for their friendly match tonight. To think that this delay caused by the international break means anything has changed with regard to a potential deal would be a bit silly.

Whether there is any deal in place, or whether there will be any deal at all are both questions that I don’t know the answer to, but every bit of news is being scrutinized, and what every person ‘in the know’ (and there appears to be millions of them at the minute) says is being scrutinized for any little bits of information.

That is understandable as I think that most fans want to seen exciting players at Newcastle, and Ben Arfa is one of them types. If he comes here then great, if he doesn’t then we haven’t missed out on anything. Well we have, but think back a few weeks and ask yourself if you would have imagined us trying to sign someone like Hatem Ben Arfa back then? I bet the answer will have been no, correct?

At the end of the day, not that much has changed really. There have been reports that Marseille have cancelled talks with Newcastle today, but are there any quotes to back that up? Probably not.

We’ll just have to wait and see what happens with this, although I can understand that our past history with regard to dragging out transfer dealings may well be playing on peoples minds. As it stands, nothing has been ruled out, by either club. That is how I see it anyway.

We shall just have to wait and see!

NUFCBlog Author: toonsy toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.

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130 Responses

  1. Nothing is going our way this transfer,Lack of money never helps.
    Well done Mike Ashley,you fat prick !

  2. I was at Ibrox and Routledge was horrible, he’s not premier league quality. We need this deal tied-up.

  3. No. Their playing the game. The way it should be played.

    It’s a shame we didn’t play the same game with Given and Nzogbia, instead of selling them to the first club that made an offer.

  4. The northern echo are now reporting that Deschamps is sanctioning the loan deal despite the Werder Bremen bid, After the french match tonight… :roll:

  5. To be fair I think Routledge just had a stinker that game. There has been many games were we have scored off his passing and his delivery has been better than Jonas. Routledge has had chances in the past but I think he will come good this time. Like it or not who else have we got?

  6. Well said DJG,Lets hope he turns up on monday night,Like rest of team.
    Happy Days.

  7. I fear that we are gonna put all our eggs in one basket here. Maybe there comes a time where we should say, right their p’##ing us about here lets look for some other players before the season starts and we’ve signed no-one.

  8. U can hardly blame anyone at our club if this dosent come off, french teams hav a history of doin this anyone remember tolouse wen we nearly signed ebondo agreed fee then at the last minute tried to double the price, I will wait til the window has closed to pass judgement, two months ago didn’t fink we wud sign anyone now we hav 3 good players not lost anyone n potenially more comin in so happy so far

  9. I’ve given in reading about it now CC(well almost)..hopefully find out oneway or the other thurs/fri.

  10. davy says:
    August 11, 2010 at 1:32 pm

    That was JFK’s version of events. Probably never even bid for him.

  11. Right on Cyprus! I couldn’t agree more. I am sick of the speculation and BS. I for one just want this transfer window to end. I am not holding out hope for any real quality players coming in who will be able to help us in the immediate future. Just get on with the matches and accept what comes.

  12. Does anyone else think these little injuries to Best etc may help nudge Cashleys hand into giving CH some dough? I hope so. I am really liking the rumour mill at the moment, those mentioned in’s and out’s. Heres hoping some come to fruitian

  13. Marseille just wait to see Ben Arfa play for France today and check if he perform well, they may get more money from this deal or another offer come in, that’s all.

    Ball on their court, We just wait and see what happen. However No surprise at all. That’s the way France club do their business.

  14. this has nothing to do with Ashley so come off it. If the stories are correct then its OM who are acting the fat pricks! Trying to play hard ball and inflate the price of their man, if this deal doesn’t go through its because of them

  15. Sorry Toonsy mate but can you post something a little bit more interesting like, I don’t know, something that isn’t so boring mate :( zzzzzzzzz

    Between you & Ed, it seems all our blogs are about negative things happening to the club, can’t you find something positive about the Toon or find something funny about the Muckems or summit :)

  16. @CiaranTheGeordieLad, yeah, damn mike ashley for sending ben arfa away on international duty, and for marseille being dicks about the transfer window. While we’re at it the floods in pakistan and the fires in russia, it’s all the fat one’s fault.

  17. “Love em or Hate’m?” v. good Toonsey!!

    Personally Ive watched the Rangers game twice now and I taught Routledge wasnt that bad, as a team I taught we played well apart from the fact our final ball was pretty shockin however this went for everyone. I know this is what himself and Jonas are there for but we also know he has it in him and just wasnt able to do it on that day. Put it down to ironing out his game in pre-season and lets see how he fares on monday.

    As far as the T-fer window is concerned I’m fully confident we’ll get more players in b4 the window shuts. The Ben Arfa one is gettin very annoying at this stage however you gotta remember that Villa still havent made a signing and plenty of other clubs have only made 1.

    Be patient, they will come!

  18. chris is on sky now,there’s been no contact between them and marseille,there’s nothing in it at the moment,he’s still very much a marseille player.
    they are still looking to do business over the next couple of weeks to strengthen.

  19. Ch jus been on ssn n says there has been no contact over ben arfa so that’s him not comin giv his normal ryt players that ryt price speech so sounds like were no closer to signing anyone

  20. Here is a question.

    Would you be happy if our players had an ‘off day’ at Manchester United and lost but got their game together against Villa and won?

    Routledge having an off day made me think of that. I mean lets face it, even if we click and play really well there is a chance we will still get beat. It’s Man Utd afterall, and most of us expect a defeat, don’t we?

  21. Toontasico,
    aye mate.
    I watched the game a couple of times too.
    We played well & coulda easily got something from the game.
    As far as i could see, it wasn’t so much the final ball as waddle the mackem banged on about, it was the lack of positioning up top. No one (mostly Carroll) made a decent near post run in the game, in fact, he just seems to want the ball to come right to him. No trying to make the play, get to the ball, just waiting for it to land squarely on his head. Shola showed far more skill & guile when he came on & caused them many more problems. He added far more to our game & showed experience.

  22. I would be Toonsy because the chances of us getting anything at Manc Usa are slim anyways, so if we lost it’s no shock but to win our first game at home against the Villians would be a great start :)

  23. Don’t want to be a moaning minnie but i have just seen pictures on sky sports of the training session, how big is joey barton ?? we dont need to worry about sol campbell jeeso, he cant be fit and he certainly cant be fast, am I the only one to notice how unfit they look ?

  24. Cyprus – Aye, but it’s all relative. I mean, who are them players? Have we ever heard of them? What would people be saying if Hughton suddenly unveiled those four players for us?

  25. well you’ve heard it from hughton himself now,nowt doing atm,no contact with marseille at all.
    aye blackpool four players signed and three of them are young lads with potential.

  26. oryt ultra toon n beatski we cant blame him for this bt we can rightfully blame him for keegan goin,, no muney this window wen we need it most no1 is asking him to fork out billions just enuf to help hughton make a decent team,, and we can blame him for changing the toons battle ground into a cheep f**king bilboard,, st james park @ sports direct.com,, but okay ur rite, ashley deserves praise for wat hes doin,, xpecting a team to survive of free transfers,, GO ASHLEY WOOP WOOP LEGEND ffs man

  27. totally pointless them open days,last time we had one of them at the start of the season,we went down lol.

  28. There hasn’t been any contact yet thats why, its not supposed to be happening until friday. NUFC reps would have made contact regarding the availability and agreed a deal in principle for Ben Arfa but that is different to his agents coming over here for formal talks and signing on the dotted line. At the moment Ben Arfa is very much still a Marseille palyer, he aint lying is he!! Everyone lay off Hughton and be patient the signings will come just stop winding yourselves up with all the rumours and speculation and wait for transfers to be announced!

  29. These are the 4 players signed by Blackpool today – –

    The defender Craig Cathcart, 21, joins from Manchester United for an undisclosed fee having agreed a three-year contract with the option of a further 12 months.

    The midfielder Ludovic Sylvestre, 26, has arrived from the Czech side Mlada Boleslav on a two-year deal with the option of a further year.

    A similar deal has been signed by Elliot Grandin, a 22-year-old French winger from Bulgaria’s CSKA Sofia who has also had Ligue 1 experience with Marseille.

    The 21-year-old midfielder Malaury Martin, who has been capped by France at various youth levels, joins on a free transfer from Monaco

    Don’t know any of them but we could say that about Perch, Gosling, Routledge etc before we signed them too :)

  30. sun stroke @ 32 stay indoors – go and lie down in a dark room & put a wet blanket over your head.

  31. Also Ashley may be a fat areshole but he’s the guy that holds the purse strings whether you all like it or not we havent done too bad in this transfer window.

  32. Posted earlier.

    So, OM are pi$$ing about eh?

    Could this be why they’ve found the confidence to be difficult. They sell this guy and there’s some cash toward their supposed Fabiano bid and no need to move Ben Arfa on!

    from the BBC –

    “West Ham are closing in on Marseille midfielder Benoit Cheyrou, 29, who is the brother of former Liverpool striker Bruno”.

    http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Transfer-news-West-Ham-close-in-on-Marseille-midfielder-Benoit-Cheyrou-article549107.html

    Now we know?

  33. just because i dont blame ashley for things beyond his control doesnt mean i think he’s a legend, it just means i’ve got a clue.

  34. john,that’s the point,might as well forget about it,there’s nothing in it atm,pointless people stewing over the situation.

  35. listen man – he would cost 9/10 million yet last week you were crying at the thought of your fat hero spending more than a million on a player.

    like i say keep oot the sun son..

  36. How about Niko Kranjcar from spurs as a buy, wouldnt cost too much and spurs have plenty alternatives at CM

  37. I thought the whole point in selling Ben Arfa was to get him off their books & because of his attitude with the Manager??

    So why would they want to keep him if the manager has had enough??? no matter who else they sell in the mean time!!

  38. Either hughtons being coy or there’s been no contact.there can’t have been that much press coverage without a small element of truth in it.the fact he says “for now he’s very much a marseille player doesn’t mean we won’t sign him.

  39. Kranjcar would be good, but i don’t think they’ll be moving many players on (especially not players of his ability) since they’ll be looking to improve the depth of their squad for the CL

  40. has anyone seen yeston’s interview?he did have a cocky grin on his dial,whether you can read anything into it,i’m not sure.

  41. RC – he’s going to stoke for £7m & it wasn’t a ‘we should buy him’ comment, it was ‘just to see if anyone would have him if we could afford him comment!!’

    As for crying at the thougt of Ashley spending money, not me mate, I know we don’t have any to spend, it the one’s who cry because he won’t spend any like yourself!!

  42. Got my reply from yesterday’s e-mail to the box office;

    ————–

    Hi there

    Opposition clubs offer a number of ticket options to us – some on a sale or return basis and some on a sale only basis. The Club makes a decision on a game by game basis regarding how many tickets it forecasts it can sell based on demand at that time.

    It is a careful balance between ensuring that supporters have the opportunity to buy tickets for away matches (and having a strong vocal support for these games) and ensuring that we mitigate the risk of being left with unsold tickets that we have to pay for. If we are left with a remnant of tickets this is wasted money that cannot be spent elsewhere, for example, player investment.

    Kind Regards

    Box Office

    ———————————-

    Player investment :lol:

    So we turned down £50,000 worth of tickets at Mnanchester United as it may dent our player recruitment? FFS, what a budget eh? :(

  43. richie,he says they are looking to strengthen,but it’s difficult,but he’s glad there’s now a realism on tyneside of where the club are at the moment,they have to build up slowly etc,the same polititian crap you always get from him,will be looking to add new faces in the next couple of weeks.it was basically a typical waste of time hughton interview,it’s like he’s reading the same script every time he’s interviewed.
    we might get some new faces in,could be from you local sunday morning league though knowing fatty.

  44. I dont believe for a minute there has been no contact with Marseille he is being coy on that one im afraid.

    Theres no smoke without fire, Not all of the papers, websites, TV Channels and marseille staff would be so far wrong

    Every little Helps Toonsy… ;)

  45. @ 54 go take a cold shower & have a glass of lemonade – you’ll feel better at teatime.

    and hopefully your memory will be back to normal by then.

  46. toonsy that 50 grand will buy ashley ten kids from the third world,you cannot stand in the way of progress lol.

  47. Toonsy….it would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic…………and I’m sure you can always ask for extra tickets if you sell the original allocation as they did several times last year.

  48. Trojan……..we can buy a couple of Sunday league players now with our savings on the away tickets ;-)

  49. Rich – I saw your avatar on a wall in Rotherham last night. Some sort of army place? Is it REME?

  50. well beatski stop defending him,, i have a clue aswell hes a shy*e owner,, all ov us go on about wantn players hu want to be at the club and help it do well and dont care about muney then wudnt we want an owner with the same mindset,,MIKE ASHLEY DUZNT CARE BWT NEWCASTLE IN THE SLIGHTEST,, okay he wants us to be stable but only so as soon as he gets the muney the club owes him he can f**k of with his profit, the truth no newcastle fan wants to hear is that unless we get players in wel go bak down,, lose more muney,, owe ashley anothe however mil,, you have to spend money to make money beatski

  51. richie,we’ll have to pay them in half time oranges,that’s if ashley hasn’t scranned them before they get there.

  52. He just said no direct contact FFS he didnt say no contact at all, he is being coy about it you are right CC, think about it guys he aint gonna turn around and say “we are at early days of negotiations but marseille are being twats so we’ll have to wait and see” thus giving every other club oppertunity to jump in and grab him, this way he is making clubs think if NUFC arent interested then we will leave well alone. It isnt how CH works and rightly so, until they are in a newcastle shirt and being announced on the NUFC website they arent Newcastle players.

  53. Rich – You reckon I shoud chase it? I could make it into a mini series :lol:

    “The story of the disappaering away seat allocation – Part 2”

    :lol:

  54. I have my problems with Ashley like everone else, but wanting back a bit of the 100M+ that he loaned the club each year isn’t one of them (if that is what he’s doing). Would you rather he not loaned that money in the first place?

  55. John

    I saw him do exactly the same thing the morning of the carlisle match when he was asked about Campbell with the same smarmy grin on his face, Im expecting something to happen after the lad leaves the french squad, IE friday im sure someone called that… ;)

  56. CC – I was just going to say that the way Hughton was acting smacked of how he was with Campbell.

  57. He didn’t say we have no interest in him.he just said there was no direct contact.there could be loads of different outcomes.he’s being very coy.doesn’t want to get fans hopes up just incase it doesn’t happen

  58. CLiNT FLiCK – Good point about the movement and certainly did contribute to the final ball looking worse against Rangers. With regard to Shola as cumbersome as he is he aint that bad an option and a lot of the time does well at getting a decent strike off with his back to goal. would still think Andy adds more tho.

    Toonsy thats a fookin disgrace that they the club has the cheek to fob off your mail by mentioning pleyer investment, how fookin thick do they think we are!!!!

    With regards to Ben Arfa I relly hope CH is just playing his cards close and in fairness he’s prooved in the past this is the way he likes to do it, keep the faith he’ll be unveiled soon (i hope)

  59. Shit!
    Haven’t we sussed out how CH goes about his business yet?
    Howay, keep up.
    He doesn’t go shouting from the roof tops.
    He plays his cards close to his chest, just deal with it.
    That’s how it’s supposed to be done.
    Who says he’s only looking at BA anyway?
    All hail the Gloominati!

  60. I’ve just read this interview , It’s pissed me off.

    http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11670_6304174,00.html

    I really hate this player and I’ve never said this thing
    to any players before. Surely I think Mr.Barton’s tackle was hard but
    it’s also a really great tackle too. Unlike your tackle it’s wasn’t part of the game. You ungraceful little boy no matter talent you are You’re *censor*.

    Go Barton !!!

  61. Toontastico,
    aye, but Carroll ain’t that tricky on the deck like.
    He’s not even that hot at hold up play tbh.
    Though it’s early days.
    We definitely need to keep PL fit though, which is why we haven’t seen him much in pre-season, i reckon.
    Cos he’s our 1 quick forward.

  62. RunLikeTheRoutledge says:
    August 11, 2010 at 2:15 pm

    He said there’s been no contact with the player. If we haven’t come to an agreement with the club, we cannot speak to him can we?

    Toonsy – That is the lamest fckin excuse I have ever heard regarding the away tickets! Do they not think we could sell more than 1800 tickets for Old Trafford? Fck me! How thick???

    As for the player investment comment, who sanctioned that? I would reply and ask them if they think we couldn’t sell at least 4k Man Utd tickets.

    Oh and ask them what player investment.

    JOKERS!

  63. clint- will be very disapointed if Loven doesn’t get a start Monday. That lone striker approach just doesn’t creat enough or me

  64. Previously Chris has been fairly clear & said he has no interest in a particular player which he hasn’t done with afra, think he actually said “no direct contact” which doesn’t mean a 3rd party isn’t involved. I’m just as frustrated with this as everyone else but I’d rather chris did this than raise hopes.

  65. Toonsy, I can kind of understand where their coming from mate if every unsold ticket potentially costs them £50 and its on sky sports and 8.00pm kick off monday night when people have work the next day ect. ect. ect…

  66. Cheers richietoon, Avatar is up n’runnin!!

    CLiNT FLiCK – While theres good and bad to be said about both and IMO there aint too much between them at the mo i reckon I’d have Andy in there for his better heding ability, i think he holds it (slightly) better, has neater touches and will put himself about a hell of a lot more.

    Great to have the NUFC Lads back in my Fantassy team by the way (no fookin wonder last year was my best year!!)

  67. MDS,
    if we go with a lone striker, i’d prefer it to be PL, as he has positional sense, moves off the ball, knows where the goal is, draws fouls rather than gives then away & has pace. Overall more dangerous.
    Not advocating 442 though like, as i think it is an optional/occasional form for years now. Too rigid.
    4231, 4321, 433, 451, or general fluidity, aye i know, we’re not the netherlands ’74-’78, but anyway.
    ;)

  68. If we sold out fairly quickly though could they not have asked for another 500 and then another 500 like they did at Barnsley ect. Maybe Man U only offered one amount if they can try and fill the rest of the ground themselves. Would be different with a club like boro maybe?

  69. To be honest I am begining to doubt whether this is going to happen or not. I would prefer if it would so that it could be over and done with. We need to get two good quality players to help us.

  70. Clint- I agree that the 4-4-2 is going away…maybe I’d feel better if we had something better that Nolan playing off theforward. I know he got has goals last year but we are in a different league now

  71. Just been on official site. Theres loads of unsold seats for the Villa game still. Can’t see it being anywhere near a sellout.

  72. Toonsy or anybody else for that matter, I read an exchange on another blog yesterday between a few familiar sounding posters about people posting under multiple user name, they seemed fairly proud of themselves & pleased that they had managed to wind-up fellow supporters, it actually sounded like they even reply to their own posts under another name! What I don’t understand is why they do it? Am I missing something or are they really that sad?

  73. DJG says:
    August 11, 2010 at 3:25 pm

    Why would it be?

    What have the club done to persuade people to spend their hard earned?

    Football clubs have been taking supporters for mugs for too long – They need a reality check. Put something in and supporters will start coming.

    For me I wish I hadn’t bought my season ticket three years ago, as I would have picked and choose my games in protest at the piss poor transfer plans the club has.

  74. Oh No,Our Mr. Best has sustained ankle ligament damage during training on Tuesday. :(

  75. Good old sky “some media circles reported ben afra deal close” Mmm who was it on monday that reported that their own ssn sources said a deal was agreed. Looks like they get their info from the same places we do & know about the same as us….nowt.

  76. love him or hate him looks like t.pulis had a plan B missed out on remys,now on to jones took a whole 4 days to come up with that,just shows what a bit of cash does.
    wonder if c.h.has a plan A

  77. Stuart79

    I dont blame you mate, I will be picking and choosing my games again this season. Partly for financial reasons, partly because alot are on the telly and I like a few sherbets when im watching it. But partly because I dont see where the investment has gone in, I know I sound a bit fair weather at times but it’s true. If he put the investment in and said right we’re building this club up again to be a premier league mainstay people would shell out more aswell im sure.

  78. i fink we will know either way by friday if ben arfa is coming, if wasnt for the internationals tonite i say we wud probably kno now

  79. I mean Boro have invested more than us, ok they got off to a s#### start but at least they have targeted promotion and signed some players, like Boyd, who could realisticaly get it. What are we aiming for, staying up by spending as little as possible on the odd home win. Even Blackpool have just signed 4 players and I bet Holloway has a better plan than us.

  80. Davy agreed ,we wil know 1 way or another ,i personally feels CH is playing his cards close to his chest ,as he did with sol ,saying the right things not to upset marseille ,but i believe ther has been contact with the club,maybe not the player with internationals .Next 48hrs we will know ,so fingers crossed .

  81. ice,
    alreet mate,how are you?
    i’m good.
    Thanx for asking, tell y’what, it was a sight for sore eyes seeing the rolling hills of Durham & the fresh air.
    The bairn didn’t wanna go home.
    She’s got so much space to run around in up there.
    We had a canny time.
    & y’can drive without lights & speed humps every 500 yards.
    :)

  82. CLINT really pleased you had canny time i theres a bit room,i walk out my back door into woods and streams see nee-body dogs love it.
    hope you didnt go into durham city,at the mo there digging the middle up,good planning by council right in middle of tourist time,some guys lol

  83. Icedog – That is nowt compared to the place I live mate. One road through the town and it has had roadworks on it for 4 years now!

  84. TOONSY,only one way to beat the arse-sitters m8,get your-sel on the council kick a few butts

  85. why are ppl even goin on about blackpool signing 4 players, if we had of signed the 4 players blackpool have ppl would of been goin mad saying who the hell are they because apparntly (if u aint heard of player before or they aint played in the pl that automatically makes them sh**e), am pleased with the window so far still think we need 3 to 4 more players n maybe we could of done business quicker but ill wait till the end of window b4 i judge

  86. ice,
    i nearly did, but got talked out of it by the mrs, good job by the sounds of it. :)

    toonsy,
    sounds like London mate. :)
    Although that’s more like, dig it up, re lay it, dig it up, re lay it forever.
    :)

  87. davy,
    fair point mate,
    & maybe we couldn’t do the biz any quicker.
    Not what some wanna think about, but hey, what are y’gonna do?

  88. ice,
    aye mate,
    5 guys, 1 shovel.
    Waste of space.
    It just took the council 2 weeks + 5 months waiting around to build a 3/5 course wall with a wood fence on top.
    They made jamie carragher look fast.
    :)

  89. It’s the motorway workers that do my nut in. Obviously I move around the country a fair bit at night nowadays and quite often I see miles and miles of carriageway reduced to one lane one with nothing except a gang of lads doing feck all other sitting in a van somewhere in the middle of it.

  90. ice,
    the bairn would love it , ’til she was about 12/13, then she’d hate it & us for bringing her back. :)
    But aye, it’s a much nicer looking place, all over the north east (other than you know where like :) ).
    & you do miss the friendliness, stotties, fresh air, the stars, the watter & peace.
    & regular trips to ‘the cathedral on the hill’.

    toonsy,
    aye mate, the 50mph average speeds, where there is nowt happening-ever!
    :)

  91. aye and they wonder were moterway -madness comes from.

    seems to me the club have and will never know oot about PR, sad isnt it

  92. There is no doubt our current squad needs strengthening as CH has identified.

    But heading back a few years into the SJP archives we bought players who were priced at the top end of their valuation and yet still failed when they eventually donned the famous black and white.

    Without mentioning the Spanish equivalent of Sicknote (Darren Anderton) there was Viana (though it pains me to say it), Luque, Boumsong, EMO and many many more.

    However if this club has learned ANYTHING from its recent history the one golden rule they have to abide by is to not pay over the odds for average players.

    If we’re not good enough with the squad we have then MA and CH will have to accept we’ll be favourites to go back down again.

    Therefore the dilemma is where do you draw the line ? Do you buy overvalued product or stick with what you’ve got and go down with a reasonably healthy bank balance ?

  93. Dont worry about ben arfa lads i have friends in Marseilles and they say he is equally livid about OM playing games with us for his transfer. It even says in their local papers ( i speak french ) that he was looking foward to playing aganist manure on monday and that his agents are appalled by OMs tactics to try and get more money for him.
    I look foward to watching him play i dont know if i want him to have a good game because if he does intrest in him will only increase !
    anyway here are links for the france game for those who dont want to watch the over rated England play ( not to say france are better lol !)

    http://www.myp2p.eu/broadcast.php?matchid=83096&part=sports

  94. Cynicaltoonfan – is this legit mate ,as im startin to lose confidence in this deal, i was over the moon the other day when the deal was apparently done ,and now its not .Ive seen Ben Arfa play a few times ,and at times ,can be matchwinner on his own ,he would solve alot of our lack of creativity ,just hope u are correct and the deal gets sorted .

  95. Marseilles are supposed to be interested in a striker from seville & now seville are reported to be interested in remy, perhaps this explains the afra hold-up.

  96. This is agonizing. I’m so ready for the 16th. If Ben Arfa wants to come along, okay. If not, F him. Either way, I’m ready for games that count.

  97. noir9….its Fabiano they’ve been after him for a while,I just think they’re being funny buggas to try and get other parties interested.Think it’ll be sorted one way or the other by Fri imo

  98. Cynicaltoonfan says:
    August 11, 2010 at 9:24 pm
    Ben arfa has scored for france !!
    F*king hell Marseilles !

    So, the price’ll go up now and we’ll be priced out! What happened to all the buys they had teed up?

    Re away tickets and the risk of paying for unsold seats….. have they ever thought about asking travellers to pre-book, months before the game? Doesn’t that eliminate the risk?

  99. Shame He probably wont come, he looked very good…
    Could of replaced Routledge in my oppinion.. Or even the possibility of paring with Carrol up front?
    Can anyone tell me there views if he will come?

    Thanks, btw, I just joined, Top site :)