Newcastle United striker Demba Ba has reassured fans that he isn’t going anywhere this summer and is committed to staying on Tyneside for another season.
Most Toon followers had expected Ba to leave this month as his £7 million buy-out clause is expected to expire on July 31st and he has already held talks with Turkish giants Galatasary and Fenerbache with closer to home targets Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United also monitoring the situation but Ba insists he is going nowhere.
Speaking from Newcastle’s pre-season tour of Germany where The Magpies were beaten 1-0 by Chemnitz yesterday, Ba told the Evening Chronicle;
“What can I say?
“The fans see me on the pitch in a Newcastle shirt – that’s my message to them. In the papers there’s been a lot of rubbish!
“Like I said on Twitter, it’s just rumours. People talk, but what I can say is that none of the teams that have been talked about have approached me. I’m still a Newcastle United player.
“Life is brilliant – I always have a smile on my face. That’s how I am. Football is my job, but it’s also a lot of fun for me. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t do it. I enjoy putting on a black and white shirt.”
Newcastle United fans will welcome the comments from last season’s top scorer about staying at St. James’ Park for another season but will be much happier when August 1st rolls around and that clause has expired. Better yet, they’ll be more pleased when September 1st comes and the transfer window is shut and Ba is firmly a Newcastle United player for another year.
Ba scored 16 goals last season but only one of which came after he returned from the African Cup of Nations in February and his bad run of form meant he was pushed to a wide-left position, accommodating the goal machine that was Papiss Cisse and the emergence of Hatem Ben Arfa, which seemed to unsettle Ba. Reports in the North East however suggest that Magpies boss Alan Pardew won’t adopt that formation next season and Ba will be back leading the front-line again with Papiss Cisse, should both men stay in the North East.
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1 Comments
‘Reports in the North East however suggest that Magpies boss Alan Pardew won’t adopt that formation next season and Ba will be back leading the front-line again with Papiss Cisse, should both men stay in the North East.’
That sounds a bit worrying as we played probably our best football & got our best run of form whilst adopting that formation – and I thought Ba played brilliant during this period despite not hitting the back of the net. Cisse and Ba are too similar to play as a front two and If keeping Ba is gonna dictate the way the manager uses his players then it’s probably best for the club if he moved on.