Hatem Ben Arfa left feeling like a ghost at PSG | OneFootball

Hatem Ben Arfa. Remember him?

It might surprise you to learn he’s still only 30, and he’s still at Paris Saint-Germain … just about.

The former Newcastle United and Hull City man moved to the Parc des Princes from Nice in the summer of 2016 and made 32 appearances in all competitions in his first season at the club, scoring four goals.

But a combination of injuries, disappointing form and mega-money signings has seen Ben Arfa slip so far down Unai Emery’s pecking order that he’s yet to make a single first-team appearance in any competition this term. In fact, he’s been frozen out of the picture to such an extent that his lawyer even threatened legal action against the club last September.

The situation hasn’t just made the 15-time French international unhappy, it’s brought on something of an existential crisis.

“What I’m going through at PSG is very complicated, I have the feeling I don’t exist,” Ben Arfa recently told French football magazine So Foot.

“You have to learn to live with that. At some point, my life as a footballer will come to an end, there will be other testing times, like sickness.

“But learning not to exist anymore after feeling like you existed after what you had done before, it’s hard.”

Once considered one of French football’s most exciting prospects, Ben Arfa won his first Ligue 1 title with Lyon at the age of just 18.

He went on to win four in a row with Les Gones before making a big-money move to Marseille, where another title soon followed.

In 2010 he moved to Newcastle, where he would score 14 goals – the most memorable of which was perhaps a stunning solo effort against Bolton Wanderers in April 2012.

However, his time at St James’ Park was blighted by a series of injuries – the most notable being a broken leg sustained in a match against Manchester City – and in 2015 he left the Magpies for Hull on loan.

But his time on Humberside came to an abrupt end in December 2014 when he unexpectedly left the country without the club’s permission. Then-Tigers boss Steve Bruce later ruefully described the playmaker as “a dreadful waste of real talent”.

“I took a chance on Ben Arfa because I knew of his ability and I felt he could give us something different but it never worked out,” added Bruce.

“Honestly in his last game for us against Manchester United, our goalkeeper ran about more than him. I had to sub him early because I needed sweat and fight in our position and I wasn’t getting it.

“To be great you have to be a team player not an individual.”

In January 2015, Ben Arfa returned to France with Nice. “Even if Real Madrid had called at that moment, my mind was made up,” he said at the time.

“There are people here who trust me, who do not judge me as some people want to judge me through the press.”

And not unlike another much-maligned character – Mario Balotelli – it was at the Allianz Riviera where Ben Arfa seemed to rediscover his love for the game as he notched up an impressive 18 goals and seven assists in 37 appearances, a record which would ultimately earn him a move to PSG.

But 18 months on from that switch, while Neymar and co are tearing it up at home and in Europe, Hatem Ben Arfa has become the spectre at the feast and it will be interesting to say where – if anywhere – his career takes him next.