De Jong ‘regrets’ breaking Ben Arfa’s leg

Posted on November 17th, 2011 | 15 Comments |

Newcastle United’s Hatem Ben Afra receives a letter from Nigel de Jong expressing regret over last season’s tackle, which resulted in a broken tibia and fibula for Ben Arfa.

Remember this?:

Difficult to forget it really!

Well apparently Nigel de Jong has written a letter to Hatem Ben Arfa ahead of Saturday’s game to express his regret over the challenge, although it’s unclear whether the letter included an apology.

De Jong didn’t receive any punishment for the tackle on the day, even though the referee claimed to have seen the tackle, but faced exclusion from the Dutch national side by manager Bert van Marwijk who said he had a problem with the way the player ‘needlessly looks to push the limit’. Rumours suggested De Jong seriously considered giving up football after that.

Newcastle wrote to the FA about the challenge – to no avail – and De Jong himself felt a bit hard done by, saying:

“There was a witch hunt and the only thing for me was my family were suffering.”

It’s unclear when this letter was actually written (well, unclear to me anyway) and whether or not it was written as result of our upcoming fixture on Saturday, although apparently De Jong didn’t contact Ben Arfa at all for a number of months after the tackle.

Some might say that Ben Arfa still hasn’t recovered the form he had before the tackle, although The Independent reports that his anger over the incident has at least subsided.

Poetic justice would of course be served if Ben Arfa played on Saturday and scored the winner for us, although I should point out that I’m saying that before I’ve had my morning medication.

NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10). Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.

Related Posts:

Posted on by Hugh de Payen in category: Hatem Ben Arfa and Hugh de Payen and NUFC gossip and speculation and Videos , with tags: , , ,
Comment on this post

15 Responses

  1. Hope HBA starts against man city on staurday, would be nice to see. an year on how things have changed

  4. This game would be the perfect time to unleash Benny. He would want revenge by playing his arse off. I just hope Pardew goes 4-5-1 and not 4-4-2 as we will get over run in the midfield by City.

  5. That said, if Benny did play and De Jong did play too, De Jong might be a bit hesitant to tackle him which would work in our favour.

  6. I,Honestly, still can’t see the foul? Nobody reacted. Not the crowd, the players or the tv pundits. I think we’ve been unfair on De-Jong. If it wasn’t a Toon player I think everyone would agree

  7. Same bone Indian magpie, some people pronounce it different as it’s sounds right when said next to tibia. The correct pronunciation is fibula though.

    I wouldn’t mind what happened now, forgive and forget, however he has previous which proves the Dutch managers assessment of needlessly pushing the nou boundaries.

  8. “It’s unclear when this letter was actually written (well, unclear to me anyway) and whether or not it was written as result of our upcoming fixture on Saturday, although apparently De Jong didn’t contact Ben Arfa at all for a number of months after the tackle”

    It also seems to be unclear who actually wrote this letter. I had a look at the Independent article online and noticed this interesting comment by one of the readers:

    “Hahahaha, have you actually read the ‘so called’ letter??? Mr Herbert you really are a pathetic so called journalist, if you can’t tell the difference between a p*ss take and an actual letter then you are in the wrong job.
    The letter was written by an ‘online’ fanzine and is categorised as ‘nonsense’. Perhaps you should do some research and possibly report on the fact that DeJong went to see Ben Arfa in hospital at the time of the injury BUT Ben Arfa refused to see him and allow him into the hospital.”
    Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/de-jong-sends-regrets-over-ben-arfa-tackle-6263137.html

    The reference to the hospital visit does seem to be correct and was reported in the press at the time:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1318686/Hatem-Ben-Arfa-snubs-Nigel-Jong-hospital-visit-horror-tackle.html

  10. looks like richard branson is buying northern rock a bad time for newcastle to lose the sponsorship now??…the bags of money he has got one of pumped money into the company and also newcastles(not sure if that works exactly)

  13. “looks like richard branson is buying northern rock a bad time for newcastle to lose the sponsorship now??”

    The purchase has actually been confirmed:
    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/richard-bransons-virgin-money-buys-northern-rock-2011-11-17?link=MW_latest_news

    I don’t think it’s just a case of unfortunate timing that Newcastle have recently lost the Northern Rock sponsorship. Everybody in the world, including Richard Branson, knows how f****** horrible the people running this club are. I expect he made quite sure that the sponsorship deal was cancelled before he agreed to buy the bank.

  14. chris_g says:

    November 17, 2011 at 9:40 am

    “oops, that last link didn’t work – it should have ended .html not .htm

    try again:”

    I fixed the first one as well Chris.

  15. Yeah, he regrets it. He’s not going to stop going in for reckless, careless, ill-advised tackles that are always likely to break someone’s leg…but he regrets it.

    Pfft, and I’d like to see him put on his back.