Ben Arfa set to sign for Newcastle next week?
Posted on December 30th, 2010 | 83 Comments |
Local journalists started reporting the news on Twitter late last night, then national journalists such as George Caulkin and Simon ‘you’re a ***’ Bird also backed up the claims which seems to indicate that the news could be true, hopefully, possibly.
It has made today’s copy of The Mirror and The Times and the general concencus seems to be that Ben Arfa will cost Newcastle £5 million with the capture set to be confirmed in the early part of next week when the January transfer window opens up for business.
Of course, nothing is ever true until it is confirmed by the club, but the fact that so many journalists appear to be reporting pretty much the exact same details should hopefully point towards this rumour being true. Let’s not forget though that we are in silly season and rumours will be rife.
In fact rumours were rife only a few days ago regarding Hatem Ben Arfa as it emerged that Liverpool were about to try and hijack the agreement we had in place with Marseille. Not wanting to let the fact that the move had already been agreed, a fee had been paid and the deal was just awaiting confirmation from Newcastle, the media persisted with it.
Ben Arfa is a cracking little player and has been missed since he suffered that double leg break against Manchester City. We are a team that is dying out for creativity, and Ben Arfa could supply that. First and foremost though he has to get fit. It could take him a while to get back into his stride, which is understandable given the extent of the injury he suffered.
Still, the word from the doctors appears to be that is was a pretty regular break with no complications to date and shouldn’t impair Hatem physically in the long run. He is currently scheduled to be back in training at the start of February, so I would say that we probably won’t see him back in action until at least the start of March, if not later.
It’s important that not too much hope and pressure is put on Ben Arfa. He has undoubted talent, but we also need to remember that we need players who can do a job now, not in a couple of months time. It is still fantastic news though that we have potentially signed a world class player, and for a pretty modest fee too.
Now let’s cross our fingers and hope it’s true!
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
Great news but we need to be realistic, he’s a signing for next season – if he starts training in Feb he won’t be available for selection till mid march and will need 4/5 games to get into the groove
We need someone or pref a couple in Jan who can hit the ground running, admittedly so do all the teams around us and there aren’t that many players who can change a game and even fewer available