Newcastle must act quick to secure Ben Arfa signature.
Posted on August 5th, 2010 | 175 Comments |
At this rate, the rumour linking Hatem Ben Arfa will soon become as tedius as the rumour that had Kris Boyd linked with us for such a long time.
Nothing ever came of that rumour, probably because there was nothing in it to start with, but at least there does seem to be something behind the Ben Arfa rumour.
As it stands Newcastle have a cash bid, believed to be in the region of £4 million, rejected. They have also offered a loan-to-buy option to Marseille, where we would take the player now for a smaller fee with the option of signing the 23-year old on a permanent deal at the end of the season, which would suit Newcastle United down to the ground, but not Marseille. So now we appear to be stuck.
Now, nobody knows if negotiations are ongoing between the two clubs, but if they are then the club will need to act quick if Newcastle are serious about signing a potential future star for a knock-down price.
We are being helped at the moment by Ben Arfa and his stubborness to move to any other club except Newcastle, but if the fannying around continues for much longer then I wouldn’t blame the player if he decided to follow up interest from elsewhere.
The keenest interest seems to be from Hoffenheim in Germany, who are apparently offering the £6 million that Marseille want, in cash, up front. Still nothing is moving though, but eventually, after a long enough wait, it will.
Now a lot of this is being perpetuated by the press as the rumour mill spins into overdrive but there are a couple of subtle differences with this rumour, that I have noticed anyway. Most of the rumour-mongering is coming from the continental press, although I don’t quite know how to take them. I know the French press is more reliable than ours, but what about the German or the Italian press? How do they stack up in the integrity stakes?
Then there are the actions of our club, or lack of them in particular. When it goes quiet at St James’ Park, things tend to be happening. It’s something I have noticed for sometime now, even before Ashley arrived and we had the fat Geordie foghorn at the helm.
Then there is what Chris Hughton said about the Ben Arfa rumour. He didn’t deny it, he just said it was “unlikely”. A bit like how Sol Campbell was dealt with, no denial, and up popped Sol soon afterwards.
At the end of the day, I would like to see Ben Arfa here, but the longer it rolls on, the less confident I am of it happening. There most definately seems to be interest on our part, now we just need to follow it up. If it was followed up, it would go a long way to allaying fears that Ashley is gambling with our Premier League survival.
Get it sorted lads!
I’m afraid that we’ve been too indecisive and he will get away, which will be a great shame because he would have been a great signing
Having said that I hope i eat my words