Hatem Ben Arfa, the Girondins striker.
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Sylvain THOMAS / AFP
The Girondins welcome FC Metz this Saturday (1 p.m.) with the aim of ending a series of five games without a win.
Very good in 2020, Hatem Ben Arfa symbolizes the Bordeaux difficulties of the moment and crystallizes as critics often do.
Even when it doesn't have much to do with it.
Despite the current turmoil, the player today still gives his priority to the Navy and White for next season.
It's a well-known little music.
She is not immune to any great talent.
And Kylian Mbappé was able to verify it again a week ago.
In one game, he once again became one of the best players in the world when only a few days earlier some dared to wonder if he had his place at PSG.
Hatem Ben Arfa knows this duplicity by heart.
Ever since he was little he has been coping with it.
One day, he was raised to the skies.
The next day, he is rolled in the mud.
It's a bit of the story of his career.
Suddenly, the sharp criticisms which accompany these last performances to the Girondins “pass completely over the head to him and me, that makes me laugh”, launches one of his close relations.
For the latter, we are simply witnessing "a new demolition campaign" as the player has already experienced.
Very good during the first part of the season in 2020 (two goals and four assists in 11 games), the French striker is indeed missing his pumps since his return from injury at the end of January.
To the point of being pointed out as one of those responsible for the black series experienced by the Navy and White (four defeats and one draw).
So is there really a Ben Arfa problem in Bordeaux?
A predictable slack
If the former French international finds himself in the eye of the storm today, it is in particular because of a paradox.
Indeed, the Girondins do not succeed any more since his return on the ground.
More generally, a figure illustrates this over the entire season: Bordeaux with Ben Arfa, it is 1 point average per game.
Without, it's 1.7 points per game.
Except that this statistic must be weighed because the Navy and the Whites did not face a “big” (apart from Lyon) without him and he was present during the last victory against Angers, on January 24, before the plunge.
In his defense, this slump was predictable.
Without preseason and having played very little in the past two years, everyone expected the club to be slack as Pablo may have known after his long absence due to injury.
Once again, the figures show this drop in speed and its less influence on the team since January: he hits half as much on goal (with a zero point against Angers and Nîmes) but above all he succeeds in half the number of dribbles. (4.1 per game in 2020 and 2.6 in 2021) and key assists (2 per game in 2020 and 0.83 in 2021).
But in the end what is perhaps more open to criticism is his attitude even if it is nothing new.
Very involved in these first steps with the Girondins, he is now doing less on the defensive level and perhaps too much on the offensive level.
His performance against OM symbolized this with this desire to be the “hero” of an evening as stressed by Jean-Louis Gasset, his trainer.
His entourage recognizes that that day, he "watered" before adding that "if it passes, we will say it's extraordinary".
Taken hostage by Gasset
In this well-known music, there is also this tireless refrain for Hatem Ben Arfa: it would pose a problem in the locker room precisely because of this attitude as a soloist.
That too his relatives are used to: "We know very well how it works, who speaks.
There is always jealousy and it's so much easier to blame him for everything but hey, he's got a bottle of it now.
“For now, the striker has decided not to respond on the advice of his entourage as during the remonstrances of Laurent Koscielny in the locker room after the match against OM.
“For Hatem, it is even rather breast precisely, he took it well at the time.
As long as there is respect, there is no problem, ”adds a friend.
The Hatem Ben Arfa / Jean-Louis Gasset couple is expected at the Girondins.
- N. TUCAT M.FEDOUACH - / AFP
Ultimately, it was mostly his own coach who awkwardly put him in an awkward position vis-à-vis his teammates.
Without him asking for anything.
Upon his arrival, Jean-Louis Gasset publicly assumed to give him the keys to the truck and that everything should revolve around him.
A statement very badly experienced by a locker room already a little in pieces.
"Gasset moved all in on Ben Arfa and it is not very judicious since the lack of consistency of Hatem (Ben Arfa) is precisely the only constant of his career", launches the agent of a Bordeaux player.
Suddenly, today, the management of the former assistant of Laurent Blanc is turning against him a little and his playmaker has nothing to do with it.
He is simply taken hostage by the statements of his trainer, who is a specialist in human relations.
He always gives priority to the Girondins
“The sea is therefore high at the moment” as a relative reminds us, but “we have to overcome these kinds of periods and he has the experience for him”.
And who says experience, says patience.
Hatem Ben Arfa is out of the question to go into a spin right now and to question everything.
If he feels, like everyone else, that things are not going well in this Bordeaux group, the striker always gives his priority to Bordeaux for next season.
In October, he signed a one-year contract plus an optional year.
Hatem Ben Arfa surrounded by Frédéric Longuépée (CEO) and Alain Roche (sports director).
- Mehdi Fedouach / AFP
“Him, he would like to stay in Bordeaux because he feels good there, affirms his entourage at
20 Minutes,
after today we do not really know where the club is going, we do not know what its position is vis-à-vis from him, there is no visibility and at the same time, the clubs are coming back to us more and more after his very good first months at the Girondins.
»Provided that the Navy and White see this Hatem Ben Arfa as soon as possible!
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