12 WTF Moments In Newcastle's Disastrous 14/15 Season

There used to be a time when Newcastle nurtured supposedly wayward talents for the greater good of the team. The more difficult sides of the likes of Andy Cole, Craig Bellamy, David Ginola and Laurent Robert were tolerated in order that their wild spirits could be unleashed where they could be used to the advantage of the team.

Unfortunately for Newcastle fans, neither Kevin Keegan nor Sir Bobby Robson were around at the start of this season when French wizard Hatem Ben Arfa - the closest thing the Toon Army has got to a reborn Peter Beardsley - came back to training "over-weight".

Instead of acknowledging that he was the key to the fifth place finish just a few years previously, Alan Pardew instead decided to scapegoat the winger, publicly questioning his commitment and his fitness to wear the shirt. No-one ever seemed to care that he was prodigiously talented or a potential match-winner (when used in the right system and with the right team-mates); they just threw him on the bonfire and quietly shepherded him off to the inglorious graveyard of Hull.

It was a preposterous decision that said everything about Newcastle's preference for "graft" over magic, and it made a martyr of a player who should have been the foundation stone.