“The coaches at Newcastle have all been impressed by my level of fitness and have had no questions about it.”
Ben Arfa may have been without match practice for a while, but did make six substitute appearances in Marseille’s friendly fixture list.
And he scored a winning goal in the Robert Louis-Dreyfus Trophy Final against Valencia and played in and netted for France on August 11 in Norway in a 2-1 loss for his country.
But he says he can’t wait for his Toon debut. “I am excited by the prospect of running out in front of these fans – I want to give everything I can for them,” he said.
“I have a lot of confidence in the people I have seen on the training field so far. After training and seeing the skills of the players in the last week or so, I feel even more confident that the team can achieve success than I did before.”