“Hell is when you can’t see the end of the tunnel. You’re on your own, with no one to support you and you move forward in the fog.
“You don’t know where you’re going, you just know that you’re going in the wrong path.”
Hatem Ben Arfa’s words, in his interview for the French website Onze Mondial, back in February, could partly describe Newcastle’s current situation.
His comments, however, were only a reference to his disastrous final season with the Magpies.
Before the summer break of 2015, Newcastle and Ben Arfa decided to go their separate ways.
After avoiding relegation, the Magpies were determined to reevaluate their situation and develop a plan, which could help them to bounce back this season.
Newcastle spent a combined sum of £76.3 million during the two transfer windows, more than any other Premier League club, bar the big-spenders Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City.
Money, however, does not always buy you success and the Magpies came to realise that in the most painful way possible.
With six games in hand, Newcastle sit six points below the relegation zone and although Benitez’s arrival gave them a boost of confidence, the nightmare of failure seems more likely than ever.
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Seeking answers regarding the club’s underwhelming performances, Newcastle legend Alan Shearer highlighted the absence of commanding strikers as one of the reasons that brought the team in the current situation.
In his column for Coral back in January, he wrote that: “Newcastle have spent nearly 60 million in six months, and still haven’t got a goalscorer.”
Indeed, numbers cynically prove him right.
Newcastle has scored 32 goals so far this season, netting only 10 goals away from home, less than any other Premier League club.
Although the lack of imposing strikers is an overall issue for the majority of the clubs in the English top-flight, Newcastle might partly blame themselves by taking a glance at Ben Arfa’s achievements this season.
According to squawka.com, the flamboyant French forward has netted 16 goals – more than any Newcastle player – in Ligue 1 for Nice, while creating 26 chances in 29 games and providing his teammates with four assists.
Although a comparison between the two leagues would not be fair, keeping in mind Premier League’s status as the most competitive top-flight in the world, Nice’s run this season to reach a Champions League spot is quite admirable.
With five games remaining until the end of the season, the Eaglets stand two points away from second place, behind Lyon and Monaco.
Ben Arfa’s arrival at Nice was a turning point for both the club and the player.
The club’s manager, Claude Puel, switched Ben Arfa to a forward position, giving him freedom to move places and get on the ball in different areas of the team’s front line.
Although he has not been used at this role since his early steps as a talented prospect in Lyon, Ben Arfa managed to quickly re-adapt to the striker’s position.
“My relationship with Claude Puel is like that of a father and son, in the sense that he wants to accompany me and wants me to progress,” Ben Arfa said in his interview for beIN Sports.
“And it works because his message seems to be getting through.
“I’m very happy to have met Claude Puel, he has helped my career get back on the right track so I’m really very happy and grateful.”
Ben Arfa’s impressive performances convinced Didier Deschamps that the player deserved a second chance in the French national team.
Although being called up for Les Blues’ international friendlies back in November, Ben Arfa did not make it into the French squad for the games against the Netherlands and Russia in March.
Realising the strong “competition for places” in Les Blues, he expressed his ambition to secure a place in the French national team selection for the Euros of 2016.
“There is no problem. It is up to me to work hard to come back but the most important thing is not me, it is the France team and that they prepare well for what is coming in June.
“I hope everybody will be right behind them. That said, of course I want to be there. I will just keep on working and putting in performances for my team.”
Antagonising the likes of Olivier Giroud, Antoine Griezmann, Anthony Martial, Kingsley Coman and Dimitri Payet for a place into the French squad might look like a ‘mission impossible’ for Ben Arfa.
Meanwhile, Newcastle face their own golgotha, having to overcome their own problems in the pitch, as well as overpass their relegation rivals by climbing up the Premier League ladder.
Although they chose – or probably were forced – to tread their own paths, both Newcastle and Ben Arfa need to find their way to resurrection.
Their routes are filled with thorns and obstacles, but both of them have to stand against the same opponent.
Their main enemy is not Sunderland, Norwich, Giroud or Griezmann.
It is actually no one but themselves.
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