Nine times out of ten the full-back would KNOW what was coming next, but got sucked into thinking the Frenchman would perhaps change his thinking (for once) and head for the corner flag.
It's a style Hatem Ben Arfa has up his sleeve - encouraged by Alan Pardew - because he is totally left-footed but plays on the right flank, and attacks the penalty area on his left side.
Jose Enrique played beside him at Newcastle, but that didn't help him, as Ben Arfa dazzled him so much the Liverpool defender spent half the match on his arse as the Toon winger left him in tied up.
Ginola was banished from the French side because of an error that gifted Bulgaria an injury time goal that knocked France out of the World Cup, while Ben Arfa has seen his international future dented by that horror tackle at Man City.
In October 2010 his left leg was broken in two places by Nigel de Jong and a long, lonely battle to regain fitness began.
It has been a very long 18 months for the Frenchman to find his form again.
Not only is there the obvious fitness battle to get on the pitch, but then he had to fight the fear that another crunching tackle would end his career.
But he is back to his best Ben Arfa’s recent outings have inevitably prompted calls for him to be included in France’s squad at Euro 2012.
Alan Pardew: “He has got some individual ability that I would be very surprised if France have in the squad in terms of what he can do to a team.
“If he continues playing like this, it will be impossible to ignore him when the time comes to announce the 23-man squad for the Euro”.
Laurent Blanc ended Ben Arfa’s near two-year international exile by calling him up for his first game for a friendly against Norway in Oslo in August 2010.
Ben Arfa crowned his comeback with a superb goal, but less than two months later he encountered de Jong and he has not been called up again since.
Ben Arfa: “My time will come.
“I have to be patient. I know that I’m ready, physically and mentally. I know what I have to do on the pitch… I want to remain the enfant terrible but I want people to say that I was the enfant terrible who was able to grow up.”