Ben Arfa creates things, simple as

I've been saying this for a while. In almost every game he plays in, even if he doesn't play well in terms of a 90 minute performance, and doesn't consistently impact the match, he will make things happen and unlock the door.

The doesn't work hard enough and he goes missing for 10-20 minutes at a time quite often, but without Cabaye in the side I don't see any other option but to play him, that is if we want to finish around 8th place.

He created more in 15 minutes than the rest of the team did in 150 minutes of football previously to that.

It all depends what we want from now till the rest of the season. Being solid is not enough, you need to create chances and score goals.

I'd personally play this vs Everton -

---------Cisse------------

---------------Ben Arfa----

Gouff---Anita---Tiote---Sissoko

Dummett--Colo--Willo---Mbiwa---

-------------Krul------------

 

Its easy to say after he has created something that won us a game. The problem is the other 6 games in a 7 game run where he creates nothing, forces all our play to break down, disrupts any rhythm to our play and generally frustrates the **** out of everyone. I still think the best place for him is the bench. I'd rather be solid and use him to change things up.

If we could trust him to play team football, no doubt it would make sense to start him. The only thing for me is I'd like him moved on in the summer so we could do with getting his value up. For that reason I'd consider starting him in the rest of our run in.

 

I give it less than ten minutes before DMW shoots this down...

EDIT: He beat me to it

 

You are not quick enough However I have agreed with starting, just my motivation is different

 

Actually, this is wrong. He's often the only way into the box for us in a game and the only one that puts a decent ball into the box. We spend hours trying to craft something and it often never comes. Ben Arfa will come up with something to get us into the box, and quite often the chance isn't taken.

He breaks up a lot of play with **** dribbling, but how many players in the squad f**k up a good move by taking a **** shot? Tiote, Sissoko, Gouffran and others all guilty of this.

It's just as much greed as Ben Arfa trying to skin everyone himself.

 

His best position for me us wide right.
Sissoko is a box to box player so should be through the middle.

 

Its not wrong Tash, we just disagree. There are games where he does nothing. More games than when he does.

Sissoko is a much much more productive player. I'd imagine he is way ahead this season than most in chances created and assists?

You can't be seriously suggesting those players lose possession as often as HBA? I doubt they could match him combined never mind individually. Tiote last season would have been a bit closer to him. However this season, he hardly gives it away at all.

Its professional football, not the schoolyard. There is no place in a professional team for what HBA does. If he could adapt, there is certainly room for his ability. At 26-27 it looks unlikely.

 

He's certainly been working hard on being wider.

 

Again, another sly ****ing reference to wor lass you filthy Jedi bastard.
I get it fella, trust me.
The light saber you left under the bed gave the game away...

 

Well, we can go on about professionalism and working as a team all we want. I agree that long term we should probably be looked for someone else, but for the rest of the season we're going to do **** all without Cabaye in the side, in terms of creativity.

Villa and Palace both had the best chances in the games they played against us, and lucky for us they spooned them when they came. We only won vs Villa because of a deflected/scrappy pass somehow made it to Remy, and he produced a moment of quality to win us the game, but we don't know now how long he'll be out and our attack looks toothless without him. Without Ben Arfa on the pitch, Palace looked like they'd see the game out. Ben Arfa came on and we should have had at least 3 goals from his work.

From my observations, Ben Arfa is the player that whips in balls that are the closest to the description of quality that you can get.

Long term, I want someone better, who works harder and is of the same technical ability, but for the time being I want him in the side, because I'm sick of getting to the wings and seeing **** cross after **** cross from the likes of Sissoko, Gouffran and others.

And in regards to Sissoko vs Ben Arfa -

Sissoko has played over 2500 mins and gotten 3 goals and 5 assists. Ben Arfa has played half of that and gotten 3 goals and 6 assists, so you're wrong about productivity.

Sissoko is a great athlete and is good when his attributes are utilized, and put in a defensive midfield role, but when he's relied upon for creativity he's ****. He hardly ever puts a decent ball in, and his passing is very on and off.

 

I've just checked though Tash and in 23 apps this season HBA has created 28 chances. In 30 apps Sissoko has created 68 chances. Even allowing for stats being deceiving because you don't know what quality of chance they were, Sissoko is much more productive. His ability to create so many chances suggests we have a problem in the striker department which we all know we do. It would appear Sissoko is far more productive than HBA looking at that. Sissoko puts a lot of quality balls in, far more than HBA, it would interesting to see his assist stats if we had a striker. Even Remy is more suited to playing wide.

I agree that Gouffran delivers very little from wide, but then he is more likely to score and works his socks off.

Undoubtedly it was the right thing to bring him on yesterday but its impossible to speculate what would have happened if he had started. He may as he has done many times, disrupted our play, led to regular counter attacks and actually handed Palace a lead to defend. I struggle to see where the 3 goals from his work would have come from? He produced one quality moment. I disagree about chances against Palace too, we had the far better chances and fully deserved our win. Cisse alone had 5 quality opportunities and Gouf had a goodun too.

 

I have to disagree with you, Cisse had several chances to score prior to HBA's introduction, it is a measure of where he is at that he didn't, the measure of his quality however is the goal that Cisse scored, HBA is a distraction, to say that Sissoko lacks any creativity and is **** is just plain stupid in my opinion, Sissoko works damn hard in both directions, is strong and has scored goals, above all he plays for the team and with the team.

 

I'm pretty sure you are trolling, or we're just watching separate games my friend, because Sissoko definitely does not produce quality balls that often. His crossing has improved, but most of his balls are mainly ****.

And it's not fair to look at it in terms of apps, and I believe you're just ignoring pieces of data to suit your side of the argument. It's very easy to look at the amount of games they've featured in, but Sissoko has played over 2500 minutes. Ben Arfa has played just under 1200 minutes. That's under half the amount of time. They've scored the same amount of goals, and two of Sissoko's came in the same match.

On top of this, Ben Arfa is treat unfairly and put under a lot of pressure quite often. People think it's just completely out of greed that Ben Arfa tries to skin everyone himself and try to win us the game, but there have been plenty of matches where it's quite clear that we're completely out of ideas, and we have a lack of a good game plan, and Pardew has just hoped that Ben Arfa could produce something to win us the game.

And this puts Pardew and our coaches into a great position, as they either get to use Ben Arfa as a scapegoat and say poor decision making lost us the game, when really it's often due to **** tactics and us just praying that a player like Ben Arfa will receive the ball and do something amazing, or they get to take credit for a great substitution choice if he scores a screamer or produces a moment of quality to unlock the opposition team.

In summary -

Sissoko is in the team for his work rate, pace and defensive qualities, which is what we've needed in a lot of our game plans when approaching games. Ben Arfa doesn't work hard enough, can't last 90 minutes and can't defend, which is why he's out the side. But the fact stays the same that he's a much better playermaker than Sissoko is, and we will need him if we want to create much towards the end of the season.

If not, then we'll just have to hope that teams can't finish their moves and we can still defensively solid and nick games 1-0.

 

No

 

I never said Sissoko lacks creativity, I said as a playermaker he's just not on the same level as Ben Arfa. Ben Arfa has scored the same amount of goals, and assisted more, and his goals and assists have more often been vital in games, compared to Sissoko scoring two in one game, and assisting goals in games we've already won.

I'm not denying Sissokos superior work rate, defensive abilities, pace and strength, but he should not be relied upon for creating things. He's a very average footballer on the ball. Most of his best attributes are his off the ball attributes. Closing down, tackling, running and working hard. Most of Ben Arfa's good qualities are on the ball, where he quite often proves himself the only player on our side that can get passed a player, the only one that can whip in a decent ball, and also the player that can pick out a player in the box far more often.

When it comes to Cisse's other chances in the game without Ben Arfa, his first chance was one that he had to take first time, and would have been a brilliant goal if he'd got it in. He was scrambling across the box with a player right on his arse. It wasn't an easy chance at all. The chance where Mbiwa played it across the box was a better opportunity and should probably have been taken.

But Ben Arfa created the two best chances of the match. One great ball into the box on his weak foot which Cisse headed over, and a genius ball which was put away by Cisse instinctively. I believe Ben Arfa knows that Cisse is much better when he has no time to think, and that's why he put the amount of pace on the ball that he did, and it was a typical Cisse finish.

 

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at how far you will go to justify HBA being on the pitch, I am impressed that HBA has an almost psychic ability to influence Cisse to score, I don't think the cross was of any higher quality than would be expected of a player in the PL at this level, what impressed me was Cisse's movement and execution of the header, considering how much he has struggled this was a very well taken goal and by no means an easy opportunity.

 

One question: Have we looked better with HBA in the team, or without him? The answer is without him. The team takes precedence over the needs of one. Not trolling at all, I'd question how many games you've watched. Sissoko has been easily our most productive player in creating chances whether per appearance or ratio of minutes. I think you are looking at it a bit doey eyed after a rare assist.

HBA has in no way treated unfairly. He has been treated in accordance with his contribution which is all a manager can do. His decision making is not some excuse, its absolutely horrendous.

In summary: Sissoko is in the team because he performs and play team football. HBA is not because he doesn't produce and plays schoolyard football. I don't rate Sissoko as a playmaker, he doesn't have that ability to control the pace of a game. As a wide player, he is better than HBA every day of the week though. HBA shoulf be the best placed player to fill the number 10 role in our squad because natural ability. Unfortunately he doesn't have knowhow or desire to harness that ability into something worthwhile.

The bottom line is when we sold Cabaye, we ravaged our game plan. The board even acknowledged that not having a back up in the squad was an error. HBA is nnot the answer to that problem. However in the short term it may be sensible to play him there readying for sale.

 

Ben arfa needs to play. In the number 10 role he doesn't really need to play defense. And wide right with mym at rb he doesn't need to either. We need someone who can win us games. I don't see the reason we can't accommodate him when our midfield has 3 holding players in it lol.

 

That is just simply not true. Sissoko has more assists than any Newcastle player.

Genius ball is stretching it. It was a good cross.

Cisse's best chances were created by Mbiwa and Anita. A tap in and a slide rule pass down the side of the defence. It has been widely accepted he took one of the more difficult opportunities. The other header was a decent chance. You have to bear in mind though, we are talking about a good game from HBA. He could easily go 5 games without creating anything now based on previous experience. And we say good game but his general play was mindless, its only two crosses which drag it up to a 6/10.

If Sissoko is average on the ball then I don't know what that makes the rest of our players given he creates the majority of our chances Benni is more of a goal threat, I'll give you that. He probably takes 20 times the number of shots Moussa does and Sissoko needs to work on it.

 

We look a more solid unit without Ben Arfa, but being solid isn't all that matters, it's winning games. If Cabaye was still here and Debuchy and Remy were fit, then I would say Ben Arfa shouldn't be playing, but they're not here. We don't know when Remy is coming back, and Cabaye is gone for good.

How is Sissoko better as a wide player than Ben Arfa? He's quite clearly more suited to a CM/CDM role, and all he does better is aid the fullbacks in defending. His crossing isn't as good, he's not very good at cutting in, and his more dangerous play comes from making runs down the middle.

Ben Arfa's goals and many of his assists have come from cutting in from the right onto his left foot. Unfortunately our team is not set up to cater to Ben Arfa. He's a lot better in an attacking side (4-3-3) when he's given freedom, which is proven by the fact that whenever we've played that formation he's been far more effective. We played it for a stretch of games in our good season, and he was awesome. We played it against Norwich with him and Sammy on the wing, and he was man of the match and we looked excellent, but we just couldn't finish off our chances.

Without a central playermaker I believe we should try and play 4-3-3.

Gouff----Cisse/Remy---Ben Arfa

----Sissoko--Tiote--Anita-----

Dummett---Colo--Willo---Mbiwa

------------Krul--------------------

This would put Sissoko and Ben Arfa in their better positions, and allow us to us our players in the right way.

Ben Arfa is a good player if played in the right set up, the same as Sissoko is a lot better in the right formation as well. Sissoko should be played down the middle, and all of his goals and best play comes from the middle.

It's a lot like the situation with Wayne Routledge. He was very uninspiring in our 4-4-2 system while he was here in the premier league, but was that because he was a poor player? No. He went to Swansea and he blossomed and became far more of an effective player, why? Because the system suited him better.

It's all quite simple but unfortunately Pardew is ******ed. We're much better in a 4-3-3, we have the pace to play such a formation, and we are able to play our players in their best positions, but we don't play it.

We'd rather pussy out and set ourselves not concede and/or hoof balls.

I really don't know where you're coming from about the amount of shots because Sissoko is one of the few players that waste plenty of chances which **** finishing and long distance shooting.

And Sissoko doesn't create MOST of our chances, he's created the most chances, and a large part of the reason is because he's played significantly more minutes than any one else in the side apart from Krul, Debuchy and Williamson.

You can argue all you want and say "it's not Sissoko's fault that more of them haven't been taken", but Ben Arfa has more assists in less than half the time and I have seen many of the chances Ben Arfa has created wasted as well.

Sissoko is a worthy asset to the team, but he's not more suited to the wing than Ben Arfa, and He's not a great technical player either.