The official line was that Ben Arfa "had a knock", and was also given a week’s leave because of what manager Alan Pardew described as a “family issue”.
However, the 27-year-old is back (although Pardew won't be) and he will be available for this weekend’s home game against Tony Pulis’s relegation-threatened Palace.
And with another "out of favour with Pardew" player Davide Santon expected to return, I wonder how much imput Carver is putting into team selection.
Perhaps now is the time to re-introduce the players with Pardew away from the stadium.
I'm just grasping at straws here, I don't know how much say Carver has, if any!
Some could argue the performance at Craven Cottage was the worst of the season (as many said on our message board) although I think there is a list we could pick from, and the Mackem humiliation is well up there.
John Carver: “The one thing I would say is that we did just lack that little bit of quality in the final third at Fulham.
“The final pass wasn’t great. But as always, this group of players work extremely hard for each other.
“We possibly didn’t have the same energy levels we did at Hull (when United won 4-1), but we had different players on the pitch.”
