Hatem Ben Arfa

[Parky]

I'm just a pissed that he's hurt himself. Common sense says it was a risky, but we have no idea what the discussions were and what the assesment was. As I said earlier it's technically not Pards fault anyway, it's a medical call.

[Cajun]

Purely out of interest can those who know how the difference in temperature (8 degrees) and the pitch have exacerbated the hamstring injury provide evidence that extends further than "well it's obvious!"?

 

Muscles perform better when warm. If it's cold it restricts the movement available in the muscles.

 

How warm though? If we were 0 degrees and they were minus 8 how much difference would it make? Any? Little? Loads?

 

If it's a massive difference then fair enough. Genuinely interested to know, just seems like a lot of amateur physio's are claiming Pardew fucked up by playing him but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of educated opinion being put forward, just feelings.

[David Icke - Son of God]

I play on a 3G pitch every week and it hurts my knees just as much as when I play on grass, so there's no difference there!

 

I think there's a lot of shite talked about plastic pitches because every cunt in the media thinks they're going to be like Kenilworth Road.

[Hanshithispantz]

I'm happy to just delude myself with ultra optimism tbh, he would have been sold to Liverpool was it not for this operation and this season is dead already except for a few European games. He should be fully fit to start next season alongside Gouffran, Cisse and a rejuvenated Cisse. Happy days.

[Cajun]

I play on a 3G pitch every week and it hurts my knees just as much as when I play on grass, so there's no difference there!

 

I think there's a lot of shite talked about plastic pitches because every cunt in the media thinks they're going to be like Kenilworth Road.

 

Played on that pitch hundreds of times

 

Played on FAR worse tbh

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

Purely out of interest can those who know how the difference in temperature (8 degrees) and the pitch have exacerbated the hamstring injury provide evidence that extends further than "well it's obvious!"?

 

Muscles perform better when warm. If it's cold it restricts the movement available in the muscles.

 

How warm though? If we were 0 degrees and they were minus 8 how much difference would it make? Any? Little? Loads?

 

If it's a massive difference then fair enough. Genuinely interested to know, just seems like a lot of amateur physio's are claiming Pardew f***ed up by playing him but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of educated opinion being put forward, just feelings.

 

I'm not that well versed to know how it reacts degree by degree. 0 is cold, -8 is fucking ridiculous If it's cold then it's silly to put pressure on a muscle that can't handle it, but it doesn't sound like that's the problem anyway. Thing is, I'm sure I've seen footballers doign warm ups before they exrercise, it may be a common thing now, its a good idea if it is.

 

It's all by the by now, though. Personally, I don't think his trip to Russia made a jot of difference to his injury, I could well be wrong. If it's a healing issue like has been said on a couple of occasions, it shouldn't have. If he's deemed fit enough to play, he mustn't have had any immediate signs of trauma you wouldn't have thought.

[Pata]

I play on a 3G pitch every week and it hurts my knees just as much as when I play on grass, so there's no difference there!

 

I think there's a lot of s**** talked about plastic pitches because every c*** in the media thinks they're going to be like Kenilworth Road.

 

They wouldn't be so popular in many places if they were seriously much worse regarding injuries than normal grass. I prefer grass but that's just down to being used to how the ball bounces.

[Mick]

 

 

Hamstring injuries have a disproportionately high recurrence rate (google it if you don't believe me). Also I am not smug, just highlighting how ridiculous some of the reactions/desperation to point the finger at Pardew have been.

 

I didn't say that you were being smug, as for the injury, is it not detectable?  I would be amazed if it can't be detected in this day and age.

 

It's obviously not an 'injury' in the standard sense of the term, though. He can run, he feels no pain (from past interviews anyway, things may have changed). It's a scar tissue issue, it's a problem in the healing of his muscle by the sounds of things. Muscles are just bunches of fibres, they tear and then heal, it's a perfectly natural process. This one has complications. It doesn't sound like an issue that actually currently affects his running etc, but not operated on will do in future. Sometimes you can't see in to the future.

 

It looks like a MRI scan can be used to predict how long an injury will take to heal and an MRI scan can be used to predict the likelyhood of a re-injury.  It would be interesting to know if an MRI scan was performed before his return. 

[Hanshithispantz]

I'm maybe being naive but I imagine the medical staff of a multi million pound company would carry out all of the necessary precautions before throwing their most converted asset back into the firing line?

[Tiresias]

I'm maybe being naive but I imagine the medical staff of a multi million pound company would carry out all of the necessary precautions before throwing their most converted asset back into the firing line?

 

Don't be silly, they haven't risked Shola at all when he's felt a tweak

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

 

 

Hamstring injuries have a disproportionately high recurrence rate (google it if you don't believe me). Also I am not smug, just highlighting how ridiculous some of the reactions/desperation to point the finger at Pardew have been.

 

I didn't say that you were being smug, as for the injury, is it not detectable?  I would be amazed if it can't be detected in this day and age.

 

It's obviously not an 'injury' in the standard sense of the term, though. He can run, he feels no pain (from past interviews anyway, things may have changed). It's a scar tissue issue, it's a problem in the healing of his muscle by the sounds of things. Muscles are just bunches of fibres, they tear and then heal, it's a perfectly natural process. This one has complications. It doesn't sound like an issue that actually currently affects his running etc, but not operated on will do in future. Sometimes you can't see in to the future.

 

It looks like a MRI scan can be used to predict how long an injury will take to heal and an MRI scan can be used to predict the likelyhood of a re-injury.  It would be interesting to know if an MRI scan was performed before his return. 

 

True, and a good point. Doubt we'll ever know. You're right, it should have and would be ridiculous if it wasn't. You'd like to think it was.

[Mick]

Purely out of interest can those who know how the difference in temperature (8 degrees) and the pitch have exacerbated the hamstring injury provide evidence that extends further than "well it's obvious!"?

 

Just to shut me up if anything see to me it just seems like one of these Mackem "facts" that one person brings up then everyone claims it to be true.

 

Given the medical team had passed him fit to play it would reassure me that as a forum we have posters more qualified to asses the injury, so I know who to believe in future

 

It looks like your question doesn't have an answer, what I have found seems to be common sense.

 

"A cold or inadequately warmed up muscle is stiffer and therefore more resistant to lengthening. If the athlete attempts a rapid eccentric contraction of the hamstrings under this condition, the muscle may be more likely to tear. Therefore, it is essential that an athlete has reached a point in the warm-up where the muscle group is at an optimal operating temperature for both enhanced performance and reduced injury risk.  However, determining a muscle temperature for optimal elasticity of the muscles is difficult, and therefore the athlete should be instructed to warm-up to a point where they feel that the muscle is in a state of readiness for the following competition."

 

It would be interesting to know what we do during half time and if we prepare for a 2nd half after muscles have had 15 minutes to relax, he didn't last too long into the 2nd half.

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

No where has it been mentioned that he pulled/strained/teared his muscle. The injury that could have been brought on by the cold.

[Cajun]

Purely out of interest can those who know how the difference in temperature (8 degrees) and the pitch have exacerbated the hamstring injury provide evidence that extends further than "well it's obvious!"?

 

Just to shut me up if anything see to me it just seems like one of these Mackem "facts" that one person brings up then everyone claims it to be true.

 

Given the medical team had passed him fit to play it would reassure me that as a forum we have posters more qualified to asses the injury, so I know who to believe in future

 

It looks like your question doesn't have an answer, what I have found seems to be common sense.

 

"A cold or inadequately warmed up muscle is stiffer and therefore more resistant to lengthening. If the athlete attempts a rapid eccentric contraction of the hamstrings under this condition, the muscle may be more likely to tear. Therefore, it is essential that an athlete has reached a point in the warm-up where the muscle group is at an optimal operating temperature for both enhanced performance and reduced injury risk.  However, determining a muscle temperature for optimal elasticity of the muscles is difficult, and therefore the athlete should be instructed to warm-up to a point where they feel that the muscle is in a state of readiness for the following competition."

 

It would be interesting to know what we do during half time and if we prepare for a 2nd half after muscles have had 15 minutes to relax, he didn't last too long into the 2nd half.

 

He was never going to stay on long in he second half though was he? he certainly wasn't limping off anyway.

[Away Toon]

Jesus stop making excuses for the club. He flew 5 hours to Russia (how do you feel after 5 hours on a plane), played on a plastic pitch, it was freezing and he was played out of position, so all he did was run around for absolutely no purpose, hardly touched the ball, and now he's crocked with the same injury that he had before. Pardew could have played Sissoko as his false #9 or what ever you want to call it. It was a shit decision by everyone involved, but at the end of the day it was Pardew's decision to play him and it backfired completely.

[Raconteur]

We've got some right melodramatic wankers on here

This

 

And it appears many people missed this post:

Pardew just said in an interview with Lowes on total sport saying Ben Arfa had had all the fitness tests, the medical team had done the scans and he'd had uninterrupted training of more than 2 weeks leading up to the away leg in Russia. So he'd been given clearance to play as nothing was showing to suggest he shouldn't.

 

Just sounds to me like one of those unfortunate things, nobody to blame, the injury is just a really complex bugger of an injury that's all. Until the lad plays and you see how the muscle responds you'll never know. It's not like he came off in trouble and was apparently walking around fine after the match. 

 

This post has also been totally ignored:

There are a good amount of studies on the 'dangers' of artificial pitches vs natural grass and there has been nothing remotely significant found. Slight increase in the chance of ankle injuries and even that requires more study before anything conclusive can be said.

 

I can dig that it's a forum and differing opinions are what keeps it going but, fuck me, there are some  people demonstrating unprecedented levels of wankerism in the past dozen pages.

 

The medical staff cleared Ben Arfa to play. The nature of the pitch simply had to have been a part of those deliberations.

The player has a history of wanting to play all the time, of having to be held back.

Pardew took these two factors into account, looked at his available players, looked at the opposition and decided to start Ben Arfa up front.

 

To lay this at Pardew's feet stinks of agenda-driven, lynch-mob hysteria.

[Hanshithispantz]

Jesus stop making excuses for the club. He flew 5 hours to Russia (how do you feel after 5 hours on a plane), played on a plastic pitch, it was freezing and he was played out of position, so all he did was run around for absolutely no purpose, hardly touched the ball, and now he's crocked with the same injury that he had before. Pardew could have played Sissoko as his false #9 or what ever you want to call it. It was a shit decision by everyone involved, but at the end of the day it was Pardew's decision to play him and it backfired completely.

Stop talking like you 100% know the craic man

 

Pardew if anything has shown himself to probably be one of the most cautious managers in English football, his entire ethos suggests he wouldn't rush a player back from injury especially under the such apparent lethal conditions that Russian astro turf brings, and obviously we cannot forget that awful plane ride where he sat down for a whole 5 hours.

[Pata]

Jesus stop making excuses for the club. He flew 5 hours to Russia (how do you feel after 5 hours on a plane), played on a plastic pitch, it was freezing and he was played out of position, so all he did was run around for absolutely no purpose, hardly touched the ball, and now he's crocked with the same injury that he had before. Pardew could have played Sissoko as his false #9 or what ever you want to call it. It was a s*** decision by everyone involved, but at the end of the day it was Pardew's decision to play him and it backfired completely.

 

 

We should get a teleportation machine as these flights are absolutely killing our squad. Beam me up to Moscow, Pardew. 

[Kaizero]

Jesus stop making excuses for the club. He flew 5 hours to Russia (how do you feel after 5 hours on a plane), played on a plastic pitch, it was freezing and he was played out of position, so all he did was run around for absolutely no purpose, hardly touched the ball, and now he's crocked with the same injury that he had before. Pardew could have played Sissoko as his false #9 or what ever you want to call it. It was a s*** decision by everyone involved, but at the end of the day it was Pardew's decision to play him and it backfired completely.

 

 

We should get a teleportation machine as these flights are absolutely killing our squad. Beam me up to Moscow, Pardew. 

 

Teleportation would literally kill them, man. Although we'd still have the copies.

[Pata]

Is there any way to get multiple copies?

[Away Toon]

Well he's crocked, out for the season (Pardew said year) and we have no idea when he might be back. He's hardly played since we signed him.

[Newcastle Fan]

What the fuck

[Tachikoma]

I play on a 3G pitch every week and it hurts my knees just as much as when I play on grass, so there's no difference there!

 

I think there's a lot of s**** talked about plastic pitches because every c*** in the media thinks they're going to be like Kenilworth Road.

 

They wouldn't be so popular in many places if they were seriously much worse regarding injuries than normal grass. I prefer grass but that's just down to being used to how the ball bounces.

 

Its popular mainly because its relatively easy to maintain, whereas grass is dependent on the local soil and the weather.

 

Also, FUCK EVERYTHING.

[Dr Venkman]

If HBA's fitness guys/our physio's said he was fit, and HBA said he was fit, then there's no blame to be apportioned anywhere.

 

I'll tell you what though, fuck all this talk of selling him. Anyone thinking like that is completely lost to the money side of the game and hasn't got the love for it anymore. It's Hatem Ben Arfa for fucks sake, you don't sell him unless you've got absolutely no choice.

[Varadi]

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/newcastle-write-off-injured-hatem-ben-arfa-for-rest-of-season-8537070.html

 

Now Newcastle’s medical staff are weighing up whether to send Ben Arfa for surgery to cure the problem in order for him to return next season.

 

“I think that’s one of two roads,” said the Newcastle manager, Alan Pardew. “We either go down a similar road to the one we went down before, or an operation and I think our medical team and everyone’s assessment, including the French surgeon, will diagnose him as well.

 

“The injury has re-occurred in the scar tissue and therefore, do we build the scar tissue up again and try and get him back that way? I think the bottom line is I just said, ‘Look, let’s just forget him this year,’ and that way he has plenty of time to decide, him and his team and our staff, what we think is right for him, and the French national team as well, because they’re in it too. They want him to be back at his best.”

 

Sounds like the decision is being made by our medical team in discussions with the French lot too - in hindsight might have been better to do the operation back in December, but then I've no idea if that has other associated risks so I'm basically just guessing like everyone else!