Nigel strikes again

Nigel de Jong lijkt niet te beseffen wat hij Hatem Ben Arfa heeft aangedaan. Twee weken geleden brak hij het been van de Fransman en er volgde een rumoerige week. Nu de storm is gaan liggen, zorgt De Jong zelf weer voor ophef.

Tijdens een trainingspartij bij zijn club Manchester City speelt hij samen met ploeggenoot Kolo Touré doodleuk het moment na van de wedstrijd waarin hij Ben Arfa naar het ziekenhuis stuurde. Natuurlijk wordt het afgedaan als een grap en 'niet gedoeld op Ben Arfa', toch is het geen slimme actie. Het toont aan dat De Jong de ernst van het moment niet inziet.

DE JONG'S FUN AND GAMES AT CITY

NIGEL DE JONG has been caught laughing about a training ground foul - two weeks after his leg-breaking tackle on Hatem Ben Arfa.

Our pictures from Manchester City's Carrington training ground yesterday show De Jong making his challenge on Kolo Toure, who then rolls around on the ground pretending to be in pain.
De Jong is then pictured jokingly checking the player is all right, while a member of City's coaching staff pretends to give him a yellow card.

But the joke will not go down well with Ben Arfa, who had to be carried off following the challenge by De Jong in City's 2-1 win over Newcastle a fortnight ago. The player, who is on loan at the Magpies from Marseille, was taken straight to hospital with a double fracture.

Ben Arfa, 23, will not play again until March at the earliest. De Jong, 25, was subsequently axed by Holland for his actions as a whole new debate was sparked about reckless challenges.

Yesterday, City boss Roberto Mancini expressed his sympathy for Ben Arfa but at the same time defended De Jong claiming the challenge was 'normal'. Mancini said: "First of all, I am very sorry for Ben Arfa. He's a good player and I hope that he can be back playing very quickly.

"But I'm very disappointed about the people who talked about the situation. I never saw the tackle at the time. I watched it two days ago. It was very, very unlucky.

"But it was a normal tackle, not all the things that the people talking about it have said." City last night moved to play down the incident. A spokesman said: "This was a training exercise and in no way did Nigel De Jong mean this to be a re-enactment of the incident with Hatem Ben Arfa."

Voor foto's van het moment, klik hier.