General stats
It’s obviously not too fair to compare Ben Arfa to the other players at Newcastle due to his limited pitch time, but the above graphic can give an indication as to what some of his strengths and weaknesses have been.
In terms of his pass completion, only 4 of the starting regulars have a better accuracy than Hatem Ben Arfa and his 78% is 1.5% above the team average.
One of the Frenchman’s best attributes has been his dribbling and no one at Newcastle currently produces more successful dribbles per game than him on average. At 1.7 per game, he is 0.2 better off than Jonas Gutierrez.
When it comes to crossing, most fans will tell you that he always seems to want that extra touch and doesn’t deliver as early as he could sometimes – because of that notion, he hasn’t produced as many as he should (0.1 per game) and his 7% cross accuracy is the worst of any player at the club.
However, when it comes to getting a shot off, only Demba Ba & Papiss Cisse from the starting regulars have more frequent shots a goal than Ben Arfa – he gets one-off every 59 mins on average, although Shola and Dan Gosling do it a little better out of the non-regulars.
Finally, one stat not shown on the graphic is his tackling – he has thrown himself into 5 tackles this season in his 15 Premier League appearances, he has won 100% of them!
More: What the fans see… on page 3.
