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Hatem Ben Arfa (still a free agent)


Dave

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HBA was always a player you had to allow free reign and in essence build a side to accommodate him.  That doesn't really cut it in modern football when the likes of Messi in his pomp would still work for the side. To be fair to Hatem you did see him in games do a bit of graft but Pardew never seemed to give him a moments credit for it, a cleverer manager may well have been able to build on those moments and hopefully integrate those into his game more. He was far too often treated like our joker. Team in the shit, need to get summat out the match Pardew would send on Ben Arfa, sometimes he'd make something happen, then still be on the bench ,other times he wouldn't, so he'd still be on the bench, and often Obertan would be in ahead of him, incredibly frustrating for a tremendously gifted player.  Barring that short period when it was HBA, Cisse and Ba, Pardew didn't have the first clue really on what to do with him. Which lead to Ben Arfa trying to throw a fridge at him I believe. As other said many times such a shame he never got to work with KK or Sir Bobby, you only have to look at his time at NIce to see what he could do to transform a team with a progressive coach.

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He would've pressed and worked reasonably hard for Howe, I think. I don't really think of HBA as being a lazy player; he just really, really didn't want to do what Pardew wanted him to do which was play as an auxiliary right wing back without the ball. 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Christ as if he's 37. Time flies!

The most technically gifted player I've seen grace the SJP turf, just glided past players as if they weren't there.

Shame he never really fulfilled his potential, I saw somewhere he's playing padel or something now?

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